B00IC0   ]f0r  1})Z  ^iWio:pf)tU 


•  BOOKS-AND-BOOKMEN  • 


BY        ANDREW      LANG 


U^U-i^/^   ^dl^^^i-^'W- 


Th6  Love  oFBoohs,th6(iol(leRKcy 
That  o[ien€>  the  (ndicmted  Door 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


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BOOKS   AND    BOOKMEN 


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VENtTIIS,    ALDUS,    ;b59. 

KAC  SIMII.F   OF   BINDING    IROM    -^HF.   I.Il'PARY   OF   GROI  IKK 


BOOKS  AND  BOOKMEN 


By  ANDREW  LANG 

Author  of  "  Tbe  Library,"  etc. 


-^   'ADCCCLXXXYI 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  J.  COOMBES 

5  <Cajst  ;S)e\3entEent]E)  S>t. 
1886 


Copyright,  1886, 
Bv  GEORGE  J.  COOMBES. 


Cambriti0e :  fitted  at  tlbe  Rftjeroilie  T^^^. 


College 
library 


To 
BRANDER  MATTHEWS 


You  took  mj>  vagrom  essaj's  in, 
You  found  them  shelter  over  sea; 

Beyond  the  Atlantic's  foam  and  din 

You  took  my  vagrom  essays  in ! 

If  any  reader  there  they  win 

To  you  be  owes  them,  not  to  me.. 

You  took  my  vagrom  essays  in, 
You  found  them  shelter  over  sea! 


pttfatotv  Bott 


AM  asked  to  say  a  few  words  of 
introduction  to  this  little  volume 
of  collected  pieces,  the  swan-song 
of  a  book-hunter.  The  author 
does  not  book-hunt  any  more  ;  he 
leaves  the  sport  to  others,  and 
with  catalogues  he  lights  a  hum- 
ble cigarette.  The  game  has  grown  too  scarce  ; 
the  preserves  are  for  the  rich  ;  the  cheap  book-stalls 
hold  Uttle  but  '  The  Death  of  Abel '  and  '  Sermons ' 
by  the  Rev.  Josiah  Gowles,  or  '  Charles  XII.'  by 
M.  de  Voltaire.  I  have  ceased  to  hope  for  better 
luck  ;  let  younger  or  more  sanguine  men  pursue  the 
fugitive  tract  and  the  rare  quarto'.  I  can  pass  the 
very  dirtiest  stall  and  never  turn  over  a  page ;  I  am 
too  wise  to  be  lured  by  cheap  Elzevirs,  those  snares 
of  inexperience.  As  the  old  cricketer  hangs  his  bat 
in  the  hall,  and,  for  the  future,  looks  on  at  "  the 
game  he  has  not  strength  to  play  ; "  as  the  veteran 
angler,  afraid  of  rheumatism,  keeps  his  feet  far  from 
the  water-side,  so  I  am  taught  to  avoid  sales  by  auc- 


vi  Prefatory  Note 

tion,  and  Sotheby's  knows  me  no  more.  Adieu, 
panierSy  the  vintaging  is  over ;  we  go  no  more  a-rov- 
ing,  by  alley,  and  court,  and  lane.  Others  may  wan- 
der, and  linger,  loiter,  and  hope,  and  buy.  For  my 
part,  the  first  editions  of  Tate  and  Brady's  singular 
psalter  is  my  only  purchase  this  twelvemonth.  It 
sings  of  simple  pieties,  and  is  very  curiously  bound 
in  black  morocco,  with  heads  of  angels,  sunbeamS;^ 
and  other  appropriate  emblems.  My  books  are  all 
German  treatises  on  Mythology,  stoutly  half  bound 
in  rude  leather.  From  these  I  learn  to  know  (like 
Cornelius  Agrippa)  "the  vanity  of  science  ; "  in  these 
I  study  the  vagaries  of  the  learned,  the  follies  of  the 
wise.  No  more  morocco  for  me,  or  tooling,  nor  first 
editions  ;  all  these  are  vanity  and  (as  a  rule)  bad 
bargains.  Be  not  in  a  hurry  to  buy,  ye  young  men 
and  maidens,  or  your  shelves,  like  mine,  will  be  over- 
crowded with  the  melancholy  harvest  of  inexperience 
and  young  desire.  In  prefaces,  and  places  where 
they  sing,  here  followeth  the  Ballade  :  — 

2£^Uatie  of  t|>e  ileaJ  anti  SItieal 

(double  refrain.) 

O  visions  of  salmon  tremendous, 
Of  trout  of  unusual  weight, 
Of  waters  that  wander  as  Ken  does, 
Ye  come  through  the  Ivorjy  Gate ! 
But  the  skies  that  bring  never  a  '  spate,' 
But  the  flies  that  catch  up  in  a  thorn, 
But  the  creel  that  is  barren  of  freight, 
Through  the  portals  of  horn  ! 


Prefatory  Note  ''^i 

O  dreams  of  the  Fates  that  attend  us 

IVith  prints  in  the  earliest  state, 

O  bargains  in  books  that  thej>  send  us, 

Ye  come  through  the  Ivory  Gate ! 

But  the  tome  of  a  dubious  date, 

But  the  quarto  that's  tattered  and  torn, 

And  bereft  of  a  title  and  date. 

Through  the  portals  of  born  ! 

O  dreams  of  the  tongues  that  commend  us, 
Of  crowns  for  the  laureate  pate, 
Of  a  Public  to  buy  and  befriend  us. 
Ye  come  through  the  Ivory  Gate! 
But  the  critics  that  slash  us  and  slate, 
But  the  people  that  hold  us  in  scorn, 
But  the  sorrow,  the  scathe,  and  the  hate, 
Through  the  portals  of  horn  ! 


Fair  dreams  of  things  golden  and  great, 
Ye  come  through  the  Ivory  Gate; 
But  the  facts  that  are  bleak  and  forlorn. 
Through  the  portals  of  horn  ! 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Prefatory  Note — with  a  Ballade  of  the  Real 

and  Ideal v 

I.  Literary  Forgeries 13 

II.  Parish  Registers .           ....  ^7 

///.  Bookmen  at  Rome ^7 

/^.  Bibliomania  in  France  ,        ,        .        .  6g 

V.  Bookbindings 9} 

VI.  Elzevirs log 

VII.  Some  Japanese  Bogie- Books       .        .        •  z^/ 

VIII.  A  Bookman's  Purgatory         .         ,         .1^9 

EhiyOY — a   Ballade  of  the  Unattainable      .         .  ij} 

Index 775 


Tbe  Initial  letters,    Head,  and  Tail-pieces,  were  designed  and 
drawn  especially  for  ibis  volume,  bj>  Geo.  R.  Halm. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Venetiis,  Aldus,  i^^g.  —  Fac- Simile  of  Binding 
from  the  Library  of  Grolier .        .        .       Frontispiece 

Binding,  with  the  Arms  of  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour        8g 

The  true  and  false  Elzevirian  Spheres       .        .       ii^ 

Fac-Simile  of  Title-Page  to  Thomce  a  Kempis  de  Im- 
itatione  Christi ii6 

The  Elzevir  Device  of  the  "  Sage"    .        .         .120 

Fac-Simile  of  engraved  Title-Page  to  "Le  Pastissier 
Frangois,"  16^'y 121 

Fac-Simile  of  full  Title  to  the  same  work  .        .       12^ 

Illustrations  to  fapanese  Bogie-Books : 

1.  Japanese  Children /j?5 

2.  A  Storm-Fiend    .         .        .        .        .  ijg 
).  A  Snow  Bogie         .        .        .        .         •  '-^i 

4.  The  Simulacrum  l^ulgare     .        ,        .14^ 

5.  A  Well  and  Water  Bogie        .        .        .149 

6.  Raising  the  Wind        ....       75^ 

7.  A  Chink  and  Crevice  Bogie     .        .        -  '55 


Literary  fotrgenejs 


Literary  iforgene^ 


N  the  whole  amusing  history  of  im- 
postures, there  is  no  more  divert- 
ing chapter  than  that  which  deals 
with  literary  frauds.  None  con- 
tains a  more  grotesque  revelation 
of  the  smallness  and  the  com- 
plexity of  human  nature,  and  none 
—  not  even  the  records  of  the 
Tichborne  trial,  and  its  results  —  displays  more 
pleasantly  the  depths  of  mortal  credulity.  The  lit- 
erary forger  is  usually  a  clever  man,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary for  him  to  be  at  least  on  a  level  with  the  liter- 
ary knowledge  and  critical  science  of  his  time.  But 
how  low  that  level  commonly  appears  to  be  !  Think 
of  the  success  of  Ireland,  a  boy  of  eighteen  ;  think 
of  Chatterton  ;  think  of  Surtees  of  Mainsforth,  who 
took  in  the  great  Magician  himself,  the  father  of  all 
them  that  are  skilled  in  ballad  lore.  How  simple 
were  the  artifices  of  these  ingenious  impostors,  their 
resources  how  scanty  ;  how  hand-to-mouth  and  im- 
provised was  their  whole  procedure  !  Times  have 
altered  a  little.  Jo  Smith's  revelation  and  famed 
"  Golden  Bible"  only  carried  captive  the  polygamous 
populus  qui  vult  decipi,  reason  ers  a  little  lower  than 


1 6  Books  and  Bookmen 

even  the  believers  in  Anglo-Israel.  The  Moabite 
Ireland,  who  lately  gave  Mr.  Shapira  the  famous 
MS.  of  Deuteronomy,  but  did  not  delude  M.  Cler- 
mont Ganneau,  was  doubtless  a  smart  man  ;  he  was, 
however,  a  little  too  indolent,  a  little  too  easily  satis- 
fied. He  might  have  procured  better  and  less  rec- 
ognizable materials  than  his  old  "synagogue  rolls;" 
in  short,  he  took  rather  too  little  trouble,  and  came 
to  the  wrong  market.  A  hterary  forgery  ought 
first,  perhaps,  to  appeal  to  the  credulous,  and  only 
slowly  should  it  come,  with  the  prestige  of  having  al- 
ready won  many  believers,  before  the  learned  world. 
The  inscriber  of  the  Phoenician  inscriptions  in  Bra- 
zil (of  all  places)  was  a  clever  man.  His  account  of 
the  voyage  of  Hiram  to  South  America  probably 
gained  some  credence  in  Brazil,  while  in  England  it 
only  carried  captive  Mr.  Day,  author  of  '  The  Pre- 
historic Use  of  Iron  and  Steel.'  But  the  Brazilians, 
from  lack  of  energy,  have  dropped  the  subject,  and 
the  Phoenician  inscriptions  of  Brazil  are  less  suc- 
cessful, after  all,  than  the  Moabite  stone,  about 
which  one  begins  to  entertain  disagreeable  doubts. 

The  motives  of  the  literary  forger  are  curiously 
mixed  ;  but  they  may,  perhaps,  be  analyzed  roughly 
into  piety,  greed,  "push,"  and  love  of  fun.  Many 
literary  forgeries  have  been  pious  frauds,  perpe- 
trated in  the  interests  of  a  church,  a  priesthood,  or 
a  dogma.  Then  we  have  frauds  of  greed,  as  if,  for 
example,  a  forger  should  offer  his  wares  for  a  mil- 
lion of  money  to  the  British  Museum  ;  or  when  he 
tries  to  palm  off  his  Samaritan  Gospel  on  the  "  Bad 
Samaritan  "  of  the  Bodleian.  Next  we  come  to 
playful  frauds,  or  frauds  in  their  origin  playful,  like 
(perhaps)  the  Shakespearian  forgeries  of  Ireland,  the 


Literary  Forgeries  ly 

supercheries  of  Prosper  Merimee,  the  sham  antique 
ballads  (very  spirited  poems  in  their  way)  of  Sur- 
tees,  and  many  other  examples.  Occasionally  it  has 
happened  that  forgeries,  begun  for  the  mere  sake 
of  exerting  the  imitative  faculty,  and  of  raising  a 
laugh  against  the  learned,  have  been  persevered 
with  in  earnest.  The  humorous  deceits  are,  of 
course,  the  most  pardonable,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
forgive  the  young  archaeologist  who  took  in  his  own 
father  with  false  Greek  inscriptions.  But  this  story 
may  be  a  mere  fable  amongst  archaeologists,  who 
are  constantly  accusing  each  other  of  all  manner 
of  crimes.  Then  there  are  forgeries  by  "pushing" 
men,  who  hope  to  get  a  reading  for  poems  which,  if 
put  forth  as  new,  would  be  neglected.  There  remain 
forgeries  of  which  the  motive  is  so  complex  as  to 
remain  forever  obscure.  We  may  generally  ascribe 
them  to  love  of  notoriety  in  the  forger ;  such  noto- 
riety as  Macpherson  won  by  his  dubious  pinchbeck 
Ossian.  More  difficult  still  to  understand  are  the 
forgeries  which  real  scholars  have  committed  or  con- 
nived at  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  some  opinion 
which  they  held  with  earnestness.  There  is  a  vein 
of  madness  and  self-deceit  in  the  character  of  the 
man  who  half-persuades  himself  that  his  own  false 
facts  are  true.  The  Payne  Collier  case  is  thus  one 
of  the  most  difficult  in  the  world  to  explain,  for  it  is 
equally  hard  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Payne  Collier  was 
taken  in  by  the  notes  on  the  folio  he  gave  the  world, 
and  to  hold  that  he  was  himself  guilty  of  forgery  to 
support  his  own  opinions. 

The  further  we  go  back  in  the  history  of  literary 
forgeries,  the  more  (as  is  natural)  do  we  find  them 
to  be  of  a  pious  or  priestly  character.     When  the 


1 8  Books  and  Bookmen 

clergy  alone  can  write,  only  the  clergy  can  forge. 
In  such  ages  people  are  interested  chiefly  in  proph- 
ecies and  warnings,  or,  if  they  are  careful  about 
literature,  it  is  only  when  literature  contains  some 
kind  of  title-deeds.  Thus  Solon  is  said  to  have 
forged  a  line  in  the  Homeric  catalogue  of  the  ships 
for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  Salamis  belonged  to 
Athens.  But  the  great  antique  forger,  the  "  Ionian 
father  of  the  rest,"  is,  doubtless,  Onomacritus. 
There  exists,  to  be  sure,  an  Egyptian  inscription 
professing  to  be  of  the  fourth,  but  probably  of  the 
twenty-sixth,  dynasty.  The  Germans  hold  the  lat- 
ter view ;  the  French,  from  patriotic  motives,  main- 
tain the  opposite  opinion.  But  this  forgery  is 
scarcely  "literary."  I  never  can  think  of  Onomac- 
ritus without  a  certain  respect  :  he  began  the  forg- 
ing business  so  very  early,  and  was  (apart  from  this 
failing)  such  an  imposing  and  magnificently  respect- 
able character.  The  scene  of  the  error  and  the  de- 
tection of  Onomacritus  presents  itself  always  to  me 
in  a  kind  of  pictorial  vision.  It  is  night,  the  clear, 
windless  night  of  Athens ;  not  of  the  Athens  whose 
ruins  remain,  but  of  the  ancient  city  that  sank  in 
ashes  during  the  invasion  of  Xerxes.  The  time 
is  the  time  of  Pisistratus  the  successful  tyrant;  the 
scene  is  the  ancient  temple,  the  stately  house  of 
Athene,  the  fane  where  the  sacred  serpent  was  fed 
on  cakes,  and  the  primeval  olive-tree  grew  beside 
the  well  of  Posidon.  The  darkness  of  the  temple's 
inmost  shrine  is  lit  by  the  ray  of  one  earthen  lamp. 
You  dimly  discern  the  majestic  form  of  a  venerable 
man  stooping  above  a  coffer  of  cedar  and  ivory, 
carved  with  the  exploits  of  the  goddess,  and  with 
boustrophedon  inscriptions.     In  his  hair  this  archaic 


Literary  Forgeries  J  9 

Athenian  wears  the  badge  of  the  golden  grasshop- 
per. You  never  saw  a  finer  man.  He  is  Onomac- 
ritus,  the  famous  poet,  and  the  trusted  guardian  of 
the  ancient  oracles  of  Musaeus  and  Bacis.  What  is 
he  doing  ?  Why,  he  takes  from  the  fragrant  cedar 
coffer  certain  thin  stained  sheets  of  lead,  whereon 
are  scratched  the  words  of  doom,  the  prophecies  of 
the  Greek  Thomas  the  Rhymer.  From  his  bosom 
he  draws  another  thin  sheet  of  lead,  also  stained 
and  corroded.  On  this  he  scratches,  in  imitation 
of  the  old  "Cadmeian  letters,"  a  prophecy  that  "the 
isles  near  Lemnos  shall  disappear  under  the  sea." 
So  busy  is  he  in  this  task,  that  he  does  not  hear 
the  rustle  of  a  chiton  behind,  and  suddenly  a  man's 
hand  is  on  his  shoulder !  Onomacritus  turns  in  hor- 
ror. Has  the  goddess  punished  him  for  tampering 
with  the  oracles  "i  No  ;  it  is  Lasus,  the  son  of  Her- 
miones,  a  rival  poet,  who  has  caught  the  keeper  of 
the  oracles  in  the  very  act  of  a  pious  forgery.  (He- 
rodotus, vii.  6.)  Pisistratus  expelled  the  learned 
Onomacritus  from  Athens,  but  his  conduct  proved, 
in  the  long  run,  highly  profitable  to  the  reputations 
of  Musaeus  and  Bacis.  Whenever  their  oracles  were 
not  fulfilled,  people  said,  "  Oh,  that  is  merely  one  of 
the  interpolations  of  Onomacritus  ! "  and  the  mat- 
ter was  passed  over.  This  Onomacritus  is  said  to 
have  been  one  of  the  original  editors  of  Homer  un- 
der Pisistratus.  He  lived  long,  never  repented,  and, 
many  years  later,  deceived  Xerxes  into  attempting 
his  disastrous  expedition.  This  he  did  by  "  keeping 
back  the  oracles  unfavorable  to  the  barbarians,"  and 
putting  forward  any  that  seemed  favorable.  The 
children  of  Pisistratus  believed  in  him,  as  spiritual- 
ists go  on  giving  credit  to  exposed  and  exploded 
**  mediums." 


20  Books  and  Bookmen 

Having  once  practised  deceit,  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  Onomacritus  acquired  a  liking  for  the  practice 
of  literary  forgery,  which,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  case 
of  Ireland,  grows  on  a  man  like  dram-drinking. 
Onomacritus  is  generally  charged  with  the  author- 
ship of  the  poems  which  the  ancients  usually  attrib- 
uted to  Orpheus,  the  companion  of  Jason.  Perhaps 
the  most  interesting  of  the  poems  of  Orpheus  to  us 
would  have  been  his  '  Inferno,'  or  Kard/Saa-Ls  es  aSov, 
in  which  the  poet  gave  his  own  account  of  his  de- 
scent to  Hades  in  search  of  Eurydice.  But  only 
a  dubious  reference  to  one  adventure  in  the  journey 
is  quoted  by  Plutarch.  Whatever  the  exact  truth 
about  the  Orphic  poems  may  be  (the  reader  may 
pursue  the  hard  and  fruitless  quest  in  Lobeck's 
'  Aglaophanus '),  it  seems  certain  that  the  period 
between  Pisistratus  and  Pericles,  like  the  Alexan- 
drian time,  was  a  great  age  for  literary  forgeries. 
But  of  all  these  frauds  the  greatest  (according  to 
the  most  "  advanced "  theory  on  the  subject)  is  the 
"  Forgery  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  !  "  The  opin- 
ions of  the  scholars  who  hold  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  which  we  know  and  which  Plato  knew,  are 
not  the  epics  known  to  Herodotus,  but  later  com- 
positions, are  not  very  clear  nor  consistent.  "But  it 
seems  to  be  vaguely  held  that  about  the  time  of 
Pericles  there  arose  a  kind  of  Greek  Macpherson. 
This  ingenious  impostor  worked  on  old  epic  mate- 
rials, but  added  many  new  ideas  of  his  own  about 
the  gods,  converting  the  lUad  (the  poem  which  we 
now  possess)  into  a  kind  of  mocking  romance,  a 
Greek  Don  Quixote.  He  also  forged  a  number  of 
pseudo-archaic  words,  tenses,  and  expressions,  and 
added  the  numerous  references  to  iron,  a  metal  prac- 


Literary  Forgeries  21 

tically  unknown,  it  is  asserted,  to  Greece  before  the 
sixth  century.  If  we  are  to  believe,  with  Professor 
Paley,  that  the  chief  incidents  of  the  Iliad  and  Odys- 
sey were  unknown  to  Sophocles,  ^schylus,  and  the 
contemporary  vase-painters,  we  must  also  suppose 
that  the  Greek  Macpherson  invented  most  of  the 
situations  in  the  Odyssey  and  Iliad.  According  to 
this  theory  the  •'  cooker "  of  the  extant  epics  was 
far  the  greatest  and  most  successful  of  all  literary 
impostors,  for  he  deceived  the  whole  world,  from 
Plato  downwards,  till  he  was  exposed  by  Mr.  Paley. 
There  are  times  when  one  is  inclined  to  believe  that 
Plato  must  have  been  the  forger  himself,  as  Bacon 
(according  to  the  other  hypothesis)  was  the  author 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Thus  "  Plato  the  wise,  and 
large-browed  Verulam,"  would  be  "  the  first  of  those 
who  "  forge  !  Next  to  this  prodigious  imposture, 
no  doubt,  the  false  *  Letters  of  Phalaris  '  are  the 
most  important  of  classical  forgeries.  And  these 
illustrate,  like  most  literary  forgeries,  the  extreme 
worthlessness  of  literary  taste  as  a  criterion  of  the 
authenticity  of  writings.  For  what  man  ever  was 
more  a  man  of  taste  than  Sir  William  Temple,  "the 
most  accomplished  writer  of  the  age,"  whom  Mr. 
Boyle  never  thought  of  without  calling  to  mind 
those  happy  lines  of  Lucretius,  — 

"Quern  tu,  dea,  tempore  in  omni 
Omnibus  ornatum  voluisti  excellere  rebus." 

Well,  the  ornate  and  excellent  Temple  held  that 
"the  Epistles  of  Phalaris  have  more  race,  more 
spirit,  more  force  of  wit  and  genius,  than  any  others 
he  had  ever  seen,  either  ancient  or  modern."  So 
much  for  what  Bentley  calls  Temple's  "Nicety  of 


22  Books  and  Bookmen 

Tast."  The  greatest  of  English  scholars  readily 
proved  that  Phalaris  used  (in  the  spirit  of  prophecy) 
an  idiom  which  did  not  exist  to  write  about  mat- 
ters in  his  time  not  invented,  but  "  ipany  centuries 
younger  than  he."  So  let  the  Nicety  of  Temple's 
Tast  and  its  absolute  failure  be  a  warning  to  us 
when  we  read  (if  read  we  must)  German  critics 
who  deny  Homer's  claim  to  this  or  that  passage, 
and  Plato's  right  to  half  his  accepted  dialogues,  on 
grounds  of  literary  taste.  And  farewell,  as  Herodo- 
tus would  have  said,  to  the  Letters  of  Phalaris,  of 
Socrates,  of  Plato ;  to  the  Lives  of  Pythagoras  and 
of  Homer,  and  to  all  the  other  uncounted  literary 
forgeries  of  the  classical  world,  from  the  Sibylline 
prophecies  to  the  battle  of  the  frogs  and  mice. 

Early  Christian  forgeries  were,  naturally,  pious. 
We  have  the  apocryphal  Gospels,  and  the  works  of 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  which  were  not  exposed 
till  Erasmus's  time.  Perhaps  the  most  important  of 
pious  forgeries  (if  forgery  be  exactly  the  right  word 
in  this  case)  was  that  of  'The  False  Decretals.' 
"  Of  a  sudden,"  says  Milman,  speaking  of  the  pon- 
tificate of  Nicholas  L  {ob.  867  a.  d.),  "  Of  a  sudden 
was  promulgated,  unannounced,  without  preparation, 
not  absolutely  unquestioned,  but  apparently  over- 
awing at  once  all  doubt,  a  new  Code,  which  to  the 
former  authentic  documents  added  fifty-nine  letters 
and  decrees  of  the  twenty  oldest  Popes  from  Clem- 
ent to  Melchiades,  and  the  donation  of  Constantine, 
and  in  the  third  part,  among  the  decrees  of  the 
Popes  and  of  the  Councils  from  Sylvester  to  Greg- 
ory II.,  thirty-nine  false  decrees,  and  the  acts  of 
several  unauthentic  Councils."  "The  whole  is  com- 
posed," Milman  adds,  "with  an  air  of  profound  piety 


Literary  Forgeries  2^ 

and  reverence."  The  False  Decretals  naturally  as- 
sert the  supremacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  "  They 
are  full  and  minute  on  Church  Property  "  (they  were 
sure  to  be  that) ;  in  fact,  they  remind  one  of  an- 
other forgery,  pious  and  Aryan,  '  The  Institutes  of 
Vishnu.'  "Let  him  not  levy  any  tax  upon  Brah- 
mans,"  says  the  Brahman  forger  of  the  Institutes, 
which  "came  from  the  mouths  of  Vishnu,"  as  he 
sat  "  clad  in  a  yellow  robe,  imperturbable,  decorated 
with  all  kinds  of  gems,  while  Lakshmi  was  stroking 
his  feet  with  her  soft  palms."  The  Institutes  took 
excellent  care  of  Brahmans  and  cows,  as  the  Decre- 
tals did  of  the  Pope  and  the  clergy,  and  the  earliest 
Popes  had  about  as  much  hand  in  the  Decretals  as 
Vishnu  had  in  his  Institutes.  Hommenay,  in  '  Pan- 
tagruel,'  did  well  to  have  the  praise  of  the  Decre- 
tals sung  by  Jilles  belles,  blondelettes,  doulcettes,  et  de 
bonne  grace.  And  then  Hommenay  drank  to  the 
Decretals  and  their  very  good  health.  "O  dives 
D^cretales,  tant  par  vous  est  le  vin  bon  bon  trouve" 
— "  O  divine  Decretals,  how  good  you  make  good 
wine  taste  !  "  "  The  miracle  would  be  greater,"  said 
Pantagruel,  "if  they  made  bad  wine  taste  good." 
The  most  that  can  now  be  done  by  the  devout  for 
the  Decretals  is  "to  palliate  the  guilt  of  their  for- 
ger," whose  name,  like  that  of  the  Greek  Macpher- 
son,  is  unknown. 

If  the  early  Christian  centuries,  and  the  Middle 
Ages,  were  chiefly  occupied  with  pious  frauds,  with 
forgeries  of  gospels,  epistles,  and  Decretals,  the  im- 
postors of  the  Renaissance  were  busy  with  classical 
imitations.  After  the  Turks  took  Constantinople, 
when  the  learned  Greeks  were  scattered  all  over 
Southern    Europe,   when    many  genuine    classical 


24  Books  and  Bookmen 

manuscripts  were  recovered  by  the  zeal  of  scholars, 
when  the  plays  of  Menander  were  seen  once,  and 
then  lost  forever,  it  was  natural  that  literary  forgery 
should  thrive.  As  yet  scholars  were  eager  rather 
than  critical ;  they  were  collecting  and  unearthing, 
rather  than  minutely  examining  the  remains  of  clas- 
sic literature.  They  had  found  so  much,  and  every 
year  were  finding  so  much  more,  that  no  discovery 
seemed  impossible.  The  lost  books  of  Livy  and 
Cicero,  the  songs  of  Sappho,  the  perished  plays  of 
Sophocles  and  .^schylus  might  any  day  be  brought 
to  light.  This  was  the  very  moment  for  the  literary 
forger ;  but  it  is  improbable  that  any  forgery  of  the 
period  has  escaped  detection.  Three  or  four  years 
ago  some  one  published  a  book  to  show  that  the 
'  Annals  of  Tacitus '  were  written  by  Poggio  Brac- 
ciolini.  This  paradox  gained  no  more  converts  than 
the  bolder  hypothesis  of  Hardouin.  The  theory  of 
Hardouin  was  that  all  the  ancient  classics  were  pro- 
ductions of  a  learned  company  which  worked,  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  under  Severus  Archontius.  Har- 
douin made  some  exceptions  to  his  sweeping  gen- 
eral theory.  Cicero's  writings  were  genuine,  he  ad- 
mitted, so  were  Pliny's,  of  Virgil  the  Georgics  ;  the 
satires  and  epistles  of  Horace,  Herodotus,  and  Ho- 
mer. All  the  rest  of  the  classics  were  a  magnificent 
forgery  of  the  illiterate  thirteenth  century,  which 
had  scarce  any  Greek,  and  whose  Latin,  abundant 
in  quantity,  in  quality  left  much  to  be  desired. 

Among  literary  forgers,  or  passers  of  false  liter- 
ary coin,  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance,  Annius  is 
the  most  notorious.  Annius  (his  real  vernacular 
name  was  Nanni),  was  born  at  Viterbo,  in  1432. 
He  became  a  Dominican,  and  (after  publishing  his 


Literary  Forgeries  25 

forged  classics)  rose  to  the  position  of  Maitre  du 
Palais  to  the  Pope,  Alexander  Borgia.  With  Caesar 
Borgia,  it  is  said  that  Annius  was  never  on  good 
terms.  He  persisted  in  preaching  "  the  sacred 
truth"  to  his  highness,  and  this  (according  to  the 
detractors  of  Annius)  was  the  only  use  he  had  for 
the  sacred  truth.  There  is  a  legend  that  Caesar 
Borgia  poisoned  the  preacher  (1502),  but  people 
usually  brought  that  charge  against  Caesar  when 
any  one  in  any  way  connected  with  him  happened 
to  die.  Annius  wrote  on  the  History  and  Empire  of 
the  Turks,  who  took  Constantinople  in  his  time  ; 
but  he  is  better  remembered  by  his  *  Antiquitatum 
Variarum  Volumina  XVH.  cum  comment.  Fr.  Jo. 
Annii.'  These  fragments  of  antiquity  included, 
among  many  other  desirable  things,  the  historical 
writings  of  Fabius  Pictor,  the  predecessor  of  Livy. 
One  is  surprised  that  Annius,  when  he  had  his  hand 
in,  did  not  publish  choice  extracts  from  the  *  Libri 
Lintei,'  the  ancient  Roman  annals,  written  on  linen, 
and  preserved  in  the  temple  of  Juno  Moneta.  Among 
the  other  discoveries  of  Annius  were  treatises  by 
Berosus,  Manetho,  Cato,  and  poems  by  Archilochus. 
Opinion  has  been  divided  as  to  whether  Annius  was 
wholly  a  knave,  or  whether  he  was  himself  imposed 
upon.  Or,  again,  whether  he  had  some  genuine 
fragments,  and  eked  them  out  with  his  own  inven- 
tions. It  is  observed  that  he  did  not  dovetail  the 
really  genuine  relics  of  Berosus  and  Manetho  into 
the  works  attributed  to  them.  This  may  be  ex- 
plained as  the  result  of  ignorance  or  of  cunning  ; 
there  can  be  no  certain  inference.  "  Even  the  Do- 
minicans," as  Bayle  says,  admit  that  Annius's  dis- 
coveries are  false,  though  they  excuse  them  by  aver- 


26  Books  and  Bookmen 

ring  that  the  pious  man  was  the  dupe  of  others. 
But  a  learned  Lutheran  has  been  found  to  defend 
the  *  Antiquitates '  of  the  Dominican. 

It  is  amusing  to  remember  that  the  great  and  eru- 
dite Rabelais  was  taken  in  by  some  pseudo-classi- 
cal fragments.  The  joker  of  jokes  was  hoaxed.  He 
published,  says  Mr.  Besant,  "  a  couple  of  Latin  for- 
geries, which  he  proudly  called  '  Ex  reliquiis  vene- 
randae  antiquitatis,'  consisting  of  a  pretended  will 
and  a  contract."  The  name  of  the  book  is  '  Ex  re- 
liquiis venerandae  antiquitatis.  Lucci  Cuspidii  Tes- 
tamentum.  Item  contractus  venditionis  antiquis 
Romanorum  temporibus  initus.  Lugduni  apud  Gry- 
phiiim  (pet.  in  8°).'  Pomponius  Laetus  and  Jovianus 
Pontanus  were  apparently  authors  of  the  hoax, 

Socrates  said  that  he  "  would  never  lift  up  his 
hand  against  his  father  Parmenides."  The  fathers 
of  the  Church  have  not  been  so  respectfully  treated 
by  literary  forgers  during  the  Renaissance.  The 
'  Flowers  of  Theology '  of  St.  Bernard,  which  were 
to  be  a  primrose  path  ad  gaudia  Paradisi  (Stras- 
burg,  1478),  were  really,  it  seems,  the  production  of 
Jean  de  Garlande.  Athanasius,  his  '  Eleven  Books 
concerning  the  Trinity,'  are  attributed  to  Vigilius,  a 
colonial  Bishop  in  Northern  Africa.  Among  false 
classics  were  two  comic  Latin  fragments  with  which 
Muretus  beguiled  Scaliger.  Meursius  has  suffered, 
posthumously,  from  the  attribution  to  him  of  a  very 
disreputable  volume  indeed.  In  1583,  a  book  on 
*  Consolations,'  by  Cicero,  was  published  at  Venice, 
containing  the  reflections  with  which  Cicero  con- 
soled himself  for  the  death  of  Tullia.  It  might  as 
well  have  been  attributed  to  Mrs.  Blimber,  and  de- 
scribed as  replete  with  the  thoughts  with  which  that 


Literary  Forgeries  27 

lady  supported  herself  under  the  affliction  of  never 
having  seen  Cicero  or  his  Tusculan  villa.  The  real 
author  was  Charles  Sigonius,  of  Modena.  Sigonius 
really  did  discover  some  Ciceronian  fragments,  and, 
if  he  was  not  the  builder,  at  least  he  was  the  restorer 
of  Tully's  lofty  theme.  In  1693,  Francois  Nodot, 
conceiving  the  world  had  not  already  enough  of 
Petronius  Arbiter,  published  an  edition,  in  which  he 
added  to  the  works  of  that  lax  though  accomplished 
author.  Nodot's  story  was  that  he  had  found  a 
whole  MS.  of  Petrarch,  at  Belgrade,  and  he  pub- 
lished it  with  a  translation  of  his  own  Latin  into 
French.  Still  dissatisfied  with  the  existing  supply 
of  Petronius'  humor  -was  Marchena,  a  writer  of 
Spanish  books,  who  printed  at  Bale  a  translation 
and  edition  of  a  new  fragment.  This  fragment  was 
very  cleverly  inserted  in  a  presumed  lacuna.  In 
spite  of  the  ironical  style  of  the  preface  many  schol- 
ars were  taken  in  by  this  fragment,  and  their  cre- 
dulity led  Marchena  to  find  a  new  fragment  (of  Ca- 
tullus this  time)  at  Herculaneum.  Eichstadt,  a  Jena 
professor,  gravely  announced  that  the  same  frag- 
ment existed  in  a  MS.  in  the  University  library, 
and,  under  pretence  of  giving  various  readings,  cor- 
rected Marchena's  faults  in  prosody.  Another  sham 
Catullus,  by  Corradino,  a  Venetian,  was  published 
in  1738. 

The  most  famous  forgeries  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  those  of  Macpherson,  Chatterton,  and  Ire- 
land. Space  (fortunately)  does  not  permit  a  discus- 
sion of  the  Ossianic  question.  That  fragments  of 
Ossianic  legend  (if  not  of  Ossianic  poetry)  survive 
in  oral  Gaelic  traditions,  seems  certain.  How  much 
Macpherson  knew  of  these,  and  how  little  he  used 


28  Books  and  Bookmen 

them  in  the  bombastic  prose  which  Napoleon  loved 
(and  spelled  "  Ocean  "),  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
discover.  The  case  of  Chatterton  is  too  well  known 
to  need  much  more  than  mention.  The  most  ex- 
traordinary poet  for  his  years  who  ever  lived  began 
with  the  forgery  of  a  sham  feudal  pedigree  for  Mr. 
Bergum,  a  pewterer,  Ireland  started  on  his  career 
in  much  the  same  way,  unless  Ireland's  *  Confes- 
sions '  be  themselves  a  fraud,  based  on  what  he 
knew  about  Chatterton,  Once  launched  in  his  ca- 
reer, Chatterton  drew  endless  stores  of  poetry  from 
"  Rowley's  MS."  and  the  muniment  chest  in  St. 
Mary  Redcliffe's.  Jacob  Bryant  believed  in  them 
and  wrote  an  '  Apology  '  for  the  credulous.  Bryant, 
who  believed  in  his  own  system  of  mythology,  might 
have  believed  in  anything.  When  Chatterton  sent 
his  "discoveries"  to  Walpole  (himself  somewhat  of 
a  mediaeval  imitator).  Gray  and  Mason  detected  the 
imposture,  and  Walpole,  his  feelings  as  an  antiquary 
injured,  took  no  more  notice  of  the  boy.  Chatter- 
ton's  death  was  due  to  his  precocity.  Had  his  gen- 
ius come  to  him  later,  it  would  have  found  him 
wiser,  and  better  able  to  command  the  fatal  demon 
of  intellect,  for  which  he  had  to  find  work,  like  Mi- 
chael Scott  in  the  legend. 

The  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  had 
been  puzzled  or  diverted  by  the  Chatterton  and 
Macpherson  frauds,  witnessed  also  the  great  and  fa- 
mous Shakespearian  forgeries.  We  shall  never  know 
the  exact  truth  about  the  fabrication  of  the  Shake- 
spearian documents,  and  'Vortigern'  and  the  other 
plays.  We  have,  indeed,  the  confession  of  the  cul- 
prit :  habemiis  confitentem  reum,  but  Mr.  W.  H,  Ire- 
land was  a  liar  and  a  solicitor's  clerk,  so  versatile 


Literary  Forgeries  29 

and  accomplished  that  we  cannot  always  believe 
him,  even  when  he  is  narrating  the  tale  of  his  own 
iniquities.  The  temporary  but  wide  and  turbulent 
success  of  the  Ireland  forgeries  suggests  the  disa- 
greeable reflection  that  criticism  and  learning  are 
(or  a  hundred  years  ago  were)  worth  very  little  as 
literary  touchstones,  A  pohshed  and  learned  so- 
ciety, a  society  devoted  to  Shakespeare  and  to  the 
stage,  was  taken  in  by  a  boy  of  eighteen.  Young 
Ireland  not  only  palmed  off  his  sham  documents, 
most  makeshift  imitations  of  the  antique,  but  even 
his  ridiculous  verse  on  the  experts.  James  Boswell 
went  down  on  his  knees  and  thanked  Heaven  for 
the  sight  of  them,  and  feeling  thirsty  after  these  de- 
votions, drank  hot  brandy  and  water.  Dr.  Parr  was 
as  readily  gulled,  and  probably  the  experts,  like  Ma- 
lone,  who  held  aloof,  were  as  much  influenced  by 
jealousy  as  by  science.  The  whole  story  of  young 
Ireland's  forgeries  is  not  only  too  long  to  be  told 
here,  but  forms  the  topic  of  a  novel  ('  The  Talk  of 
the  Town  ')  by  Mr.  James  Payn.  The  frauds  in  his 
hands  lose  neither  their  humor  nor  their  compli- 
cated interest  of  plot.  To  be  brief,  then,  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Ireland  was  a  gentleman  extremely  fond  of  old 
literature  and  old  books.  If  we  may  trust  the  '  Con- 
fessions '  (1805)  of  his  candid  son,  Mr.  W.  H.  Ireland, 
a  more  harmless  and  confiding  old  person  than  Sam- 
uel never  collected  early  English  tracts.  Living  in 
his  learned  society,  his  son,  Mr.  W.  H.  Ireland,  ac- 
quired not  only  a  passion  for  black  letters,  but  a  de- 
sire to  emulate  Chatterton.  His  first  step  in  guilt 
was  the  forgery  of  an  autograph  on  an  old  pamphlet, 
with  which  he  gratified  Samuel  Ireland.  He  also 
wrote  a  sham  inscription  on  a  modern  bust  of  Crom- 


^  Books  and  Bookmen 

well,  which  he  represented  as  an  authentic  antique. 
Finding  that  the  critics  were  taken  in,  and  attrib- 
uted this  new  bust  to  the  old  sculptor  Simon,  Ire- 
land conceived  a  very  low  and  not  unjustifiable  opin- 
ion of  critical  tact.  Critics  would  find  merit  in 
anything  which  seemed  old  enough.  Ireland's  next 
achievement  was  the  forgery  of  some  legal  docu- 
ments concerning  Shakespeare.  Just  as  the  bad  man 
who  deceived  the  guileless  Mr.  Shapira  forged  his 
'Deuteronomy'  on  the  blank  spaces  of  old  syna- 
gogue rolls,  so  young  Ireland  used  the  cut-off  ends 
of  old  rent  rolls.  He  next  bought  up  quantities  of 
old  fly-leaves  of  books,  and  on  this  ancient  paper  he 
indicted  a  sham  confession  of  faith,  which  he  attrib- 
uted to  Shakespeare.  Being  a  strong  "  evangelical," 
young  Mr.  Ireland  gave  a  very  Protestant  complex- 
ion to  this  edifying  document.  And  still  the  critics 
gaped  and  wondered  and  believed.  Ireland's  method 
was  to  write  in  an  ink  made  by  blending  various 
liquids  used  in  the  marbling  of  paper  for  bookbind- 
ing. This  stuff  was  supplied  to  him  by  a  bookbind- 
er's apprentice.  When  people  asked  questions  as 
to  whence  all  the  new  Shakespeare  manuscripts 
came,  he  said  they  were  presented  to  him  by  a  gen- 
tleman who  wished  to  remain  anonymous.  Finally, 
the  impossibility  of  producing  this  gentleman  was 
one  of  the  causes  of  the  detection  of  the  fraud.  Ac- 
cording to  himself,  Ireland  performed  prodigies  of 
acuteness.  Once  he  had  forged,  at  random,  the 
name  of  a  contemporary  of  Shakespeare.  He  was 
confronted  with  a  genuine  signature,  which,  of 
course,  was  quite  different.  He  obtained  leave  to 
consult  his  "anonymous  gentleman,"  rushed  home, 
forged  the  name  on  the  model  of  what   had   been 


Literary  Forgeries  ^i 

shown  to  him,  and  returned  with  this  signature  as  a 
new  gift  from  his  benefactor.  That  nameless  friend 
had  informed  him  that  there  were  two  persons  of 
the  same  name,  and  that  both  signatures  were  genu- 
ine. Ireland's  impudence  went  the  length  of  intro- 
ducing an  ancestor  of  his  own,  with  the  same  name 
as  himself,  among  the  companions  of  Shakespeare. 
If  '  Vortigern '  had  succeeded  (and  it  was  actually- 
put  on  the  stage  with  all  possible  pomp),  Ireland 
meant  to  have  produced  a  series  of  pseudo-Shake- 
spearian plays  from  William  the  Conqueror  to  Queen 
Elizabeth.  When  busy  with  'Vortigern,'  he  was 
detected  by  a  friend  of  his  own  age,  who  pounced 
on  him  while  he  was  at  work,  as  Lasus  pounced  on 
Onomacritus.  The  discoverer,  however,  consented 
to  "  stand  in  "  with  Ireland,  and  did  not  divulge  his 
secret.  At  last,  after  the  fiasco  of  'Vortigern,'  sus- 
picion waxed  so  strong,  and  disagreeable  inquiries 
for  the  anonymous  benefactor  were  so  numerous, 
that  Ireland  fled  from  his  father's  house.  He  con- 
fessed all,  and,  according  to  his  own  account,  fell 
under  the  undying  wrath  of  Samuel  Ireland.  Any 
reader  of  Ireland's  confessions  will  be  likely  to  sym- 
pathize with  old  Samuel  as  the  dupe  of  his  son. 
The  whole  story  is  told  with  a  curious  mixture  of 
impudence  and  humor,  and  with  great  plausibility. 
Young  Ireland  admits  that  his  "desire  for  laughter" 
was  almost  irresistible,  when  people  —  learned,  pom- 
pous, sagacious  people  —  listened  attentively  to  the 
papers.  One  feels  half  inclined  to  forgive  the  rogue 
for  the  sake  of  his  youth,  his  cleverness,  his  humor. 
But  the  '  Confessions '  are,  not  improbably,  almost  as 
apocryphal  as  the  original  documents.  They  were 
written  for  the  sake  of  money,  and  it  is  impossible 


32  Books  and  Bookmen 

to  say  how  far  the  same  mercenary  motive  actuated 
Ireland  in  his  forgeries.  Dr.  Ingleby,  in  his  'Shake- 
speare Fabrications,'  takes  a  very  rigid  view  of  the 
conduct,  not  only  of  William,  but  of  old  Samuel  Ire- 
land. Sam,  according  to  Dr.  Ingleby,  was  a  part- 
ner in  the  whole  imposture,  and  the  confession  was 
only  one  element  in  the  scheme  of  fraud.  Old  Sam- 
uel was  the  Fagin  of  a  band  of  young  literary  Dodg- 
ers. He  "positively  trained  his  whole  family  to 
trade  in  forgery,"  and  as  for  Mr.  W.  H.  Ireland,  he 
was  "the  most  accomplished  liar  that  ever  lived," 
which  is  certainly  a  distinction  in  its  way.  The 
point  of  the  joke  is  that,  after  the  whole  conspiracy 
exploded,  people  were  anxious  to  buy  examples  of 
the  forgeries.  Mr.  W.  H.  Ireland  was  equal  to  the 
occasion.  He  actually  forged  his  own,  or  (accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Ingleby)  his  father's  forgeries,  and,  by 
thus  increasing  the  supply,  he  deluged  the  market 
with  sham  shams,  with  imitations  of  imitations.  If 
this  accusation  be  correct,  it  is  impossible  not  to  ad- 
mire the  colossal  impudence  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Ireland. 
Dr.  Ingleby,  in  the  ardor  of  his  honest  indignation, 
pursues  William  into  his  private  life,  which,  it  ap- 
pears, was  far  from  exemplary.  But  literary  criti- 
cism should  be  content  with  a  man's  works ;  his  do- 
mestic life  is  matter,  as  Aristotle  often  says,  "for  a 
separate  kind  of  investigation."  Old  Ritson  used  to 
say  that  "  every  literary  impostor  deserved  hanging 
as  much  as  a  common  thief."  W.  H.  Ireland's  mer- 
its were  never  recognized  by  the  law. 

How  old  Ritson  would  have  punished  "the  old 
corrector,"  it  is  "  better  only  guessing,"  as  the 
wicked  say,  according  to  Clough,  in  regard  to  their 
own  possible  chastisement.     The  difficulty  is  to  as- 


Literary  Forgeries  )) 

certain  who  the  apocryphal  old  corrector  really  was. 
The  story  of  his  misdeeds  was  recently  brought 
back  to  mind  by  the  death,  at  an  advanced  age,  of 
the  learned  Shakespearian,  Mr.  J.  Payne  Collier. 
Mr.  Collier  was,  to  put  it  mildly,  the  Shapira  of  the 
old  corrector.  He  brought  that  artist's  works  be- 
fore the  public  ;  but  why  f  how  deceived,  or  how 
influenced,  it  is  once  more  "  better  only  guessing." 
Mr.  Collier  first  brought  to  the  public  notice  his 
singular  copy  of  a  folio  Shakespeare  (second  edition), 
loaded  with  ancient  manuscript  emendations,  in 
1849.  ^^-  Collier's  account  of  this  book  was  sim- 
ple and  plausible.  He  chanced,  one  day,  to  be  in 
the  shop  of  Mr.  Rudd,  the  bookseller,  in  Great 
Newport  Street,  when  a  parcel  of  second-hand  vol- 
umes arrived  from  the  country.  When  the  parcel 
was  opened,  the  heart  of  the  Bibliophile  began  to 
sing,  for  the  packet  contained  two  old  folios,  one 
of  them  an  old  folio  Shakespeare  of  the  second  edi- 
tion (1632).  The  volume  (mark  this)  was  "  much 
cropped,"  greasy,  and  imperfect.  Now  the  student 
of  Mr.  Hamilton's  'Inquiry'  into  the  whole  affair 
is  already  puzzled.  In  later  days,  Mr.  Collier  said 
that  his  folio  had  previously  been  in  the  posses- 
sion of  a  Mr.  Parry.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Parry 
(then  a  very  aged  man)  failed  to  recognize  his  folio 
in  Mr.  Collier's,  for  his  copy  was  "  cropped,"  whereas 
the  leaves  of  Mr.  Collier's  example  were  not  muti- 
Jated.  Here,  then  (*  Inquiry,'  pp.  12,  61),  we  have 
two  descriptions  of  the  outward  aspect  of  Mr.  Col- 
lier's dubious  treasure.  In  one  account  it  is  "  much 
cropped  "  by  the  bookbinder's  cruel  shears  ;  in  the 
other,  its  unmutilated  condition  is  contrasted  with 
that  of  a  copy  which  has  been  "cropped."     In  any 


^4  Books  and  Bookmen 

case,  Mr.  Collier  hoped,  he  says,  to  complete  an  im- 
perfect folio  he  possessed,  with  leaves  taken  from 
the  folio  newly  acquired  for  thirty  shillings.  But 
the  volumes  happened  to  have  the  same  defects, 
and  the  healing  process  was  impossible.  Mr.  Col- 
lier chanced  to  be  going  into  the  country,  when  in 
packing  the  folio  he  had  bought  of  Rudd  he  saw  it 
was  covered  with  manuscript  corrections  in  an  old 
hand.  These  he  was  inclined  to  attribute  to  one 
Thomas  Perkins,  whose  name  was  written  on  the 
fly-leaf,  and  who  might  have  been  a  connection  of 
Richard  Perkins,  the  actor  (Jior.  1633).  The  notes 
contained  many  various  readings,  and  very  numerous 
changes  in  punctuation.  Some  of  these  Mr.  Collier 
published  in  his  '  Notes  and  Emendations'  (1852), 
and  in  an  edition  of  the  '  Plays.'  There  was  much 
discussion,  much  doubt,  and  the  previous  folio  of 
the  old  Corrector  (who  was  presumed  to  have  marked 
the  book  in  the  theatre  during  early  performances) 
was  exhibited  to  the  Society  of  Antiquaries.  Then 
Mr.  Collier  presented  the  treasure  to  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire,  who  again  lent  it  for  examination  to  the 
British  Museum.  Mr.  Hamilton  published  in  the 
Times  (July,  1859)  the  results  of  his  examination 
of  the  old  corrector.  It  turned  out  that  the  old  cor- 
rector was  a  modern  myth.  He  had  first  made  his 
corrections  in  pencil,  and  in  a  modern  hand,  and 
then  he  had  copied  them  over  in  ink,  and  in  a  forged 
ancient  hand.  The  same  word  sometimes  recurred, 
in  both  handwritings.  The  ink,  which  looked  old, 
was  really  no  English  ink  at  all,  not  even  Ireland's 
mixture.  It  seemed  to  be  sepia,  sometimes  mixed 
with  a  little  Indian  ink.  Mr.  Hamilton  made  many 
other  sad  discoveries.      He   pointed   out   that  Mr. 


Literary  Forgeries  ^5 

Collier  had  published,  from  a  Dulwich  MS.,  a  letter 
of  Mrs.  Alleyne's  (the  actor's  wife),  referring  to 
Shakespeare  as  "Mr.  Shakespeare  of  the  Globe." 
Now  the  Dulwich  MS.  was  mutilated  and  blank  in 
the  very  place  where  this  interesting  reference 
should  have  occurred.  Such  is  a  skeleton  history 
of  the  old  corrector,  his  works  and  ways.  It  is 
probable  that  —  thanks  to  his  assiduities  —  new 
Shakespearian  documents  will  in  future  be  received 
with  extreme  scepticism  ;  and  this  is  all  the  fruit, 
except  acres  of  newspaper  correspondence,  which 
the  world  has  derived  from  Mr.  Collier's  greasy  and 
imperfect  but  unique  "corrected  folio." 

The  recency  and  (to  a  Shakespearian  critic)  the 
importance  of  these  forgeries  obscures  the  humble 
merit  of  Surtees,  with  his  ballads  of  the  '  Slaying 
of  Antony  Featherstonhaugh,'  and  of  '  Bartram's 
Dirge.'  Surtees  left  clever  lacuncs  in  these  songs, 
"  collected  from  oral  traditions,"  and  furnished  notes 
so  learned  that  they  took  in  Sir  Walter  Scott.  There 
are  moments  when  I  half  suspect  "  the  Shirra  him- 
sel "  (who  forged  so  many  extracts  from  "  Old 
Plays  ")  of  having  composed  *  Kinmont  Willie.'  To 
compare  old  Scott  of  Satchell's  account  of  Kin- 
mont Willie  with  the  ballad  is  to  feel  uncomfortable 
doubts.  But  this  is  a  rank  impiety.  The  last  bal- 
lad forgery  of  much  note  was  the  set  of  sham  Mace- 
donian epics  and  popular  songs  (all  about  Alexander 
the  Great,  and  other  heroes)  which  a  schoolmaster 
in  the  Rhodope  imposed  on  M.  Verkovitch.  The 
trick  was  not  badly  done,  and  the  imitation  of  "bal 
lad  slang"  was  excellent.  The  "Oera  Linda  book," 
too,  was  successful  enough  to  be  translated  into 
English.     With  this  latest  effort  of  the  tenth  muse, 


i<5 


Books  and  Bookmen 


the  crafty  muse  of  Literary  Forgery,  we  may  leave 
a  topic  which  could  not  be  exhausted  in  a  ponderous 
volume.  We  have  not  room  even  for  the  forged  let- 
ters of  Shelley,  to  which  Mr.  Browning,  being  taken 
in  thereby,  wrote  a  preface,  nor  for  the  forged  let- 
ters of  Mr.  Ruskin,  which  hoaxed  all  the  newspapers 
not  long  ago. 


Cuno0itiej5  of  paxi^t)  mtsimt^ 


€unoMt0  of  pm^\)  M^i^tm 


HERE  are  three  classes  of  per- 
sons who  are  deeply  concerned 
with  parish  registers  —  namely, 
villains,  antiquaries,  and  the  sed- 
ulous readers,  "  parish  clerks  and 
others,"  of  the  second  or  "agony" 
column  of  the  Times.  Villains 
are  probably  the  most  numer- 
ous of  these  three  classes.  The  villain  of  fiction 
dearly  loves  a  parish  register :  he  cuts  out  pages, 
inserts  others,  intercalates  remarks  in  a  different 
colored  ink,  and  generally  manipulates  the  register 
as  a  Greek  manages  his  hand  at  dearth,  or  as  a  He- 
brew dealer  in  Moabite  bric-a-brac  treats  a  syna- 
gogue roll.  We  well  remember  one  villain  who  had 
locked  himself  into  the  vestry  (he  was  disguised  as 
an  archaeologist),  and  who  was  enjoying  his  wicked 
pleasure  with  the  register,  when  the  vestry  some- 
how caught  fire,  the  rusty  key  would  not  turn  in 
the  door,  and  the  villain  was  roasted  alive,  in  spite 
of  the  disinterested  efforts  to  save  him  made  by 
all  the  virtuous  characters  in  the  story.  Let  the 
fate  of  this  bold,  bad  man  be  a  warning  to  wicked 
earls,  baronets,  and  all  others  who  attempt  to  de- 


40  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

stroy  the  record  of  the  marriage  of  a  hero's  parents. 
Fate  will  be  too  strong  for  them  in  the  long  run, 
though  they  bribe  the  parish  clerk,  or  carry  off  in 
white  wax  an  impression  of  the  keys  of  the  vestry 
and  of  the  iron  chest  in  which  a  register  should 
repose. 

There  is  another  and  more  prosaic  danger  in  the 
way  of  villains,  if  the  new  bill,  entitled  "  The  Parish 
Register  Preservation  Act,"  ever  becomes  law.  The 
bill  provides  that  every  register  earlier  than  1837 
shall  be  committed  to  the  care  of  the  Master  of  the 
Rolls,  and  removed  to  the  Record  Office.  Now  the 
common  villain  of  fiction  would  feel  sadly  out  of 
place  in  the  Register  Office,  where  a  more  watchful 
eye  than  that  of  a  comic  parish  clerk  would  be  kept 
on  his  proceedings.  Villains  and  local  antiquaries 
will,  therefore,  use  all  their  parliamentary  influence 
to  oppose  and  delay  this  bill,  which  is  certainly  hard 
on  the  parish  archaeologist.  The  men  who  grub  in 
their  local  registers,  and  slowly  compile  parish  or 
county  history,  deserve  to  be  encouraged  rather  than 
depressed,  Mr.  Chester  Waters,  therefore,  suggests 
that  copies  of  registers  should  be  made,  and  the 
comparatively  legible  copy  left  in  the  parish,  while 
the  crabbed  original  is  conveyed  to  the  Record  Of- 
fice in  London.  Thus  the  local  antiquary  would 
really  have  his  work  made  more  easy  for  him  (though 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  would  quite  enjoy 
that  condescension),  while  the  villain  of  romance 
would  be  foiled  ;  for  it  is  useless  (as  a  novel  of  Mr. 
Christie  Murray's  proves)  to  alter  the  register  in  the 
keeping  of  the  parish  when  the  original  document  is 
safe  in  the  Record  Office.  But  previous  examples 
of  enforced  transcription  (as  in   1603)   do  not  en- 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  4' 

courage  us  to  suppose  that  the  copies  would  be  very 
scrupulously  made.  Thus,  after  the  Reformation, 
the  prayers  for  the  dead  in  the  old  registers  were 
omitted  by  the  copyist,  who  seemed  to  think  (as  the 
contractor  for  "  sandwich  men "  said  to  the  poor 
fellows  who  carried  the  letter  H),  "  I  don't  want 
you,  and  the  public  don't  want  you,  and  you  're  no 
use  to  nobody."  Again,  when  Laurence  Fletcher 
was  buried  in  St.  Saviour's,  Southwark,  in  1608,  the 
old  register  described  him  as  "  a  player,  the  King's 
servant."  But  the  clerk,  keeping  a  note  -  book, 
simply  called  Laurence  Fletcher  "a  man,"  and  (in 
1625)  he  also  styled  Mr.  John  Fletcher  "a  man." 
Now,  the  old  register  calls  Mr.  John  Fletcher  "a 
poet."  To  copy  all  the  parish  registers  in  England 
would  be  a  very  serious  task,  and  would  probably 
be  but  slovenly  performed.  If  they  were  repro- 
duced again,  by  any  process  of  photography,  the  old 
difficult  court  hand  would  remain  as  hard  as  ever. 
But  this  is  a  minor  objection,  for  the  local  antiquary 
revels  in  the  old  court  hand. 

From  the  little  volume  by  Mr,  Chester  Waters, 
already  referred  to  ('  Parish  Registers  in  England  ; ' 
printed  for  the  author  by  F.  J.  Roberts,  Little  Brit- 
ain, E.  C),  we  proceed  to  appropriate  such  matters 
of  curiosity  as  may  interest  minds  neither  parochial 
nor  doggedly  antiquarian.  Parish  registers  among 
the  civilized  peoples  of  antiquity  do  not  greatly  con- 
cern us.  It  seems  certain  that  many  Polynesian 
races  have  managed  to  record  (in  verse,  or  by  some 
rude  marks)  the  genealogies  of  their  chiefs  through 
many  hundreds  of  years.  These  oral  registers  are 
accepted  as  fairly  truthful  by  some  students,  yet 
we  must  remember  that  Pindar  supposed  himself  to 


42  Books  and  Bookmen 

possess  knowledge  of  at  least  twenty-five  genera- 
tions before  his  own  time,  and  that  only  brought 
him  up  to  the  birth  of  Jason.  Nobody  believes  in 
Jason  and  Medea,  and  possibly  the  genealogical 
records  of  Maoris  and  Fijians  are  as  little  trust- 
worthy as  those  of  Homeric  Greece.  However,  to 
consider  thus  is  to  consider  too  curiously.  We  only 
know  for  certain  that  genealogy  very  soon  becomes 
important,  and,  therefore,  that  records  are  early 
kept,  in  a  growing  civilization.  ^"  After  Nehemiah's 
return  from  the  captivity  in  Babylon,  the  priests  at 
Jerusalem,  whose  register  was  not  found,  were  as 
polluted  put  from  the  priesthood."  Rome  had  her 
parish  registers,  which  were  kept  in  the  temple  of 
Saturn.  But  modern  parish  registers  were  "  discov- 
ered "  (like  America)  in  1497,  when  Cardinal  Xime- 
nes  found  it  desirable  to  put  on  record  the  names 
of  the  godfathers  and  godmothers  of  baptized  chil- 
dren. When  these  relations  of  "  gossip,"  or  god's 
kin  (as  the  word  literally  means),  were  not  cer- 
tainly known,  married  persons  could  easily  obtain 
divorces,  by  pretending  previous  spiritual  relation- 
ship. 

But  it  was  only  during  the  reign  of  Mary  (called 
the  Bloody)  that  this  rule  of  registering  godfathers 
and  godmothers  prevailed  in  England.  Henry 
Vni.  introduced  the  custom  of  parish  registers 
when  in  a  Protestant  humor.  By  the  way,  how 
curiously  has  Madame  de  Flamareil  {la  feinine  de 
qtiarante  ans,  in  Charles  de  Bernard's  novel)  anti- 
cipated the  verdict  of  Mr.  Froude  on  Henry  VHI. ! 
"'On  accuse  Henri  VHI.,'  dit  Madame  de  Flama- 
reil, 'moi  je  le  comprends,  et  je  I'absous;  c'etait  un 
coeur  genereux,  lorsqu'il  ne  les  aimait  plus,  il  les 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  4^ 

tuait.'"  The  public  of  England  mistrusted,  in  the 
matter  of  parish  registers,  the  generous  heart  of 
Henry  VIII.  It  is  the  fixed  conviction  of  the  pub- 
lic that  all  novelties  in  administration  mean  new 
taxes.  Thus  the  Croatian  peasantry  have  lately 
been  on  the  point  of  revolting  because  they  imag- 
ined that  they  were  to  be  taxed  in  proportion  to  the 
length  of  their  mustaches.  The  English  believed, 
and  the  insurgents  of  the  famous  Pilgrimage  of 
Grace  declared,  that  baptism  was  to  be  refused  to 
all  children  who  did  not  pay  a  "  trybette  "  (tribute) 
to  the  king.  But  Henry,  or  rather  his  minister, 
Cromwell,  stuck  to  his  plan,  and  (September  29, 
1538)  issued  an  injunction  that  a  weekly  register  of 
weddings,  christenings,  and  burials  should  be  kept 
by  the  curate  of  every  parish.  The  cost  of  the  book 
(twopence  in  the  case  of  St.  Margaret's,  Westmin- 
ster) was  defrayed  by  the  parishioners.  The  oldest 
extant  register  books  are  those  thus  acquired  in 
1597  or  1603.  These  volumes  were  of  parchment, 
and  entries  were  copied  into  them  out  of  the  old 
books  on  paper.  The  copyists,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  indolent,  and  omitted  characteristic  points  in 
the  more  ancient  records. 

In  the  civil  war  parish  registers  fell  into  some 
confusion,  and  when  the  clergy  did  make  entries  they 
commonly  expressed  their  political  feelings  in  a 
mixture  of  Latin  and  English.  Latin,  by  the  way, 
went  out  as  Protestantism  came  in,  but  the  curate 
of  Rotherby,  in  Leicestershire,  writes,  "  Bellum, 
Bellum,  Bellum,  interruption  !  persecution  !  "  At 
St.  Bridget's,  in  Chester,  is  the  quaint  entry,  "  1643. 
Here  the  register  is  defective  till  1653.  The  tymes 
were  such  !"    At  Hilton,  in  Dorset,  William  Snoke, 


44  Books  and  Bookmen 

minister,  entered  his  opinion  that  persons  whose 
baptism  and  marriage  were  not  registered  "  will  be 
made  uncapable  of  any  earthly  inheritance  if  they 
live.  This  I  note  for  the  satisfaction  of  any  that  do : " 
though  we  may  doubt  whether  these  parishioners 
found  the  information  thus  conveyed  highly  satis- 
factory. 

The  register  of  Maid's  Moreton,  Bucks,  tells  how 
the  reading-desk  (a  spread  eagle,  gilt)  was  "  doomed 
to  perish  as  an  abominable  idoll ; "  and  how  the 
cross  on  the  steeple  nearly  (but  not  quite)  knocked 
out  the  brains  of  the  Puritan  who  removed  it.  The 
Puritans  had  their  way  with  the  registers  as  well 
as  with  the  eagle  ("  the  vowl,"  as  the  old  country 
people  call  it),  and  laymen  took  the  place  of  par- 
sons as  registrars  in  1653.  The  books  from  1653 
to  1660,  while  this  regime  lasted,  "were  kept  excep- 
tionally well,"  new  brooms  sweeping  clean.  The 
books  of  the  period  contain  fewer  of  the  old  Puri- 
tan Christian  names  than  we  might  have  expected. 
We  find  *'  Repetite  Kytchens,"  so  styled  before  the 
poor  little  thing  had  anything  but  original  sin  to 
repent  of.  "  Faint  not  Kennard  "  is  also  registered, 
and  "  Freegift  Mabbe." 

A  novelty  was  introduced  into  registers  in  1678. 
The  law  required  (for  purposes  of  protecting  trade) 
that  all  the  dead  should  be  buried  in  woollen  wind- 
ing sheets.  The  price  of  the  wool  was  the  obolus 
paid  to  the  Charon  of  the  Revenue.  After  March 
25,  1667,  no  person  was  to  be  "buried  in  any  shirt, 
shift,  or  sheet  other  than  should  be  made  of  woole 
only."  Thus  when  the  children  in  a  little  Oxford- 
shire village  lately  beheld  a  ghost,  "dressed  in  a 
long  narrow  gown  of  woollen,  with  bandages  round 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  4^ 

the  head  and  chin,"  it  is  clear  that  the  ghost  was 
much  more  than  a  hundred  years  old,  for  the  act 
"  had  fallen  into  disuse  long  before  it  was  repealed 
in  1 8 14."  But  this  has  little  to  do  with  parish  reg- 
isters. The  addition  made  to  the  duties  of  the 
keeper  of  the  register  in  1678  was  this  —  he  had 
to  take  and  record  the  affidavit  of  a  kinsman  of  the 
dead,  to  the  effect  that  the  corpse  was  actually  bur- 
ied in  woollen  fabric.  The  upper  classes,  however, 
preferred  to  bury  in  linen,  and  to  pay  the  fine  of  5/. 
When  Mistress  Oldfield,  the  famous  actress,  was 
interred  in  1730,  her  body  was  arrayed  "  in  a  very 
fine  Brussels  lace  headdress,  a  holland  shift  with  a 
tucker  and  double  ruffles  of  the  same  lace,  and  a 
pair  of  new  kid  gloves." 

In  1694  an  empty  exchequer  was  replenished  by 
a  tax  on  marriages,  births,  and  burials,  the  very  ex- 
tortion which  had  been  feared  by  the  insurgents  in 
the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  The  tax  collectors  had  ac- 
cess without  payment  of  fee  to  the  registers.  The 
registration  of  births  was  discontinued  when  the 
Taxation  Acts  expired.  An  attempt  to  introduce 
the  registration  of  births  was  made  in  1753,  but  un- 
successfully. The  public  had  the  old  superstitious 
dread  of  anything  like  a  census.  Moreover,  the 
custom  was  denounced  as  "  French,"  and  therefore 
abominable.  In  the  same  way  it  was  thought  saga- 
cious to  call  the  cloture  "the  French  gag"  during 
some  recent  discussions  of  parliamentary  rules.  In 
1783  the  parish  register  was  again  made  the  instru- 
ment of  taxation,  and  threepence  was  charged  on 
every  entry.  Thus  "  the  clergyman  was  placed  in 
the  invidious  light  of  a  tax  collector,  and  as  the 
poor  were  often  unable  or  unwilling  to  pay  the  tax. 


46  Books  and  Bookmen 

the  clergy  had  a  direct  inducement  to  retain  their 
good-will  by  keeping  the  registers  defective." 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  indignation  in  Scotland, 
when  "  bang  went  saxpence "  every  time  a  poor 
man  had  twins !  Of  course  the  Scotch  rose  up 
against  this  unparalleled  extortion.  At  last,  in  1812, 
"  Rose's  Act "  was  passed.  It  is  styled  "  an  Act 
for  the  better  regulating  and  preserving  registers  of 
births,"  but  the  registration  of  births  is  altogether 
omitted  from  its  provisions.  By  a  stroke  of  the 
wildest  wit  the  penalty  of  transportation  for  four- 
teen years,  for  making  a  false  entry,  is  "to  be  di- 
vided equally  between  the  informer  and  the  poor 
of  the  parish."  A  more  casual  Act  has  rarely  been 
drafted. 

Without  entering  into  the  modern  history  of  par- 
ish registers,  we  may  exa'mine  a  few  of  the  ancient 
curiosities  to  be  found  therein,  the  blunders  and  the 
waggeries  of  forgotten  priests,  and  curates,  and 
parish  clerks.  In  quite  recent  times  (1832)  it  was 
thought  worth  while  to  record  that  Charity  Morrell 
at  her  wedding  had  signed  her  name  in  the  register 
with  her  right  foot,  and  that  the  ring  had  been  placed 
on  the  fourth  toe  of  her  left  foot ;  for  poor  Charity 
was  born  without  arms.  Sometimes  the  time  of  a 
birth  was  recorded  with  much  minuteness,  that  the 
astrologers  might  draw  a  more  accurate  horoscope. 
Unlucky  children,  with  no  acknowledged  fathers, 
were  entered  in  a  variety  of  odd  ways.  In  Lambeth 
(1685),  George  Speedwell  is  put  down  as  "a  merry 
begot ; "  Anne  Twine  is  "fil  imuisaijtisgue"  At 
Croydon,  a  certain  William  is  "terraefilius  "  (1582), 
an  autochthonous  infant.  Among  the  queer  names 
of  foundlings  are  "Nameless,"  "Godsend,"  "Sub- 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  47 

poena,"  and  "  Moyses  and  Aaron,  two  children 
found,"  not  in  the  bulrushes,  but  "  in  the  street." 

The  rule  was  to  give  the  foundling  for  surname 
the  name  of  the  parish,  and  from  the  Temple 
Church  came  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  four 
foundlings  named  "Temple,"  between  1728  and  1755. 
These  Temples  are  the  plebeian  gens  of  the  patri- 
cian house  which  claims  descent  from  Godiva.  The 
use  of  surnames  as  Christian  names  is  later  than  the 
Reformation,  and  is  the  result  of  a  reaction  against 
the  exclusive  use  of  saints'  names  from  the  calendar. 
Another  example  of  the  same  reaction  is  the  use  of 
Old  Testament  names,  and  "  Ananias  and  Sapphira 
were  favorite  names  with  the  Presbyterians."  It  is 
only  fair  to  add  that  these  names  are  no  longer 
popular  with  Presbyterians,  at  any  rate  in  the  Kirk 
of  Scotland.  The  old  Puritan  argument  was  that 
you  would  hardly  select  the  name  of  too  notorious 
a  scriptural  sinner,  "as  bearing  testimony  to  the 
triumph  of  grace  over  original  sin."  But  in  Amer- 
ica a  clergyman  has  been  known  to  decline  to  chris- 
ten a  child  "  Pontius  Pilate,"  and  no  wonder. 

Entries  of  burials  in  ancient  times  often  contained 
some  biographical  information  about  the  deceased. 
But  nothing  could  possibly  be  vaguer  than  this : 
"  161 5,  February  28,  St.  Martin's,  Ludgate,  was  bur- 
ied an  anatomy  from  the  College  of  Physicians." 
Man,  woman,  or  child,  sinner  or  saint,  we  know  not, 
only  that  "  an  anatomy "  found  Christian  burial  in 
St.  Martin's,  Ludgate.  How  much  more  full  and 
characteristic  is  this,  from  St.  Peter's-in-the-East, 
Oxford  (1568):  "There  was  buried  Alyce,  the  wiff 
of  a  naughty  fellow  whose  name  is  Matthew  Manne." 
There  is  immortality  for  Matthew  Manne,  and  there 


48  Books  and  Bookmen 

is,  in  short-hand,  the  tragedy  of  "Alyce  his  wiff." 
The  reader  of  this  record  knows  more  of  Matthew 
than  in  two  hundred  years  any  one  is  likely  to  know 
of  us  who  moralize  over  Matthew  !  At  Kyloe,  in 
Northumberland,  the  intellectual  defects  of  Henry 
Watson  have,  like  the  naughtiness  of  Manne,  se- 
cured him  a  measure  of  fame.  (1696.)  "  Henry 
was  so  great  a  fooll,  that  he  never  could  put  on  his 
own  close,  nor  never  went  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off 
the  house  "  in  all  his  life  of  thirty-six  years. 

What  had  Mary  Woodfield  done  to  deserve  the 
alias  which  the  Croydon  register  gives  her  of 
"  Queen  of  Hell  "  ?  (1788.)  Distinguished  people 
were  buried  in  effigy,  in  all  the  different  churches 
with  which  they  were  connected,  and  each  sham 
burial  service  was  entered  in  the  parish  registers, 
a  snare  and  stumbling-block  to  the  historian.  This 
curious  custom  is  very  ancient.  Thus  we  read  in 
the  Odyssey  that  when  Menelaus  heard  in  Egypt  of 
the  death  of  Agamemnon  he  reared  for  him  a  ceno- 
taph, and  piled  an  empty  barrow  "  that  the  fame  of 
the  dead  man  might  never  be  quenched,"  Probably 
this  old  usage  gave  rise  to  the  claims  of  several 
Greek  cities  to  possess  the  tomb  of  this  or  that  an- 
cient hero.  A  heroic  tomb,  as  of  Cassandra  for 
example,  several  towns  had  to  show,  but  which  was 
the  true  grave,  which  were  the  cenotaphs  ?  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  buried  in  all  the  London  churches, 
and  poor  Cassandra  had  her  barrow  in  Argos,  My- 
cenae, and  Amyclse. 

"A  drynkyng  for  the  soul"  of  the  dead,  a  ra^os  or 
funeral  feast,  was  as  common  in  England  before  the 
Reformation  as  in  ancient  Greece.  James  Cooke,  of 
Sporle,  in  Norfolk  (1528),  left  six  shillings  and  eight- 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  49 

pence  to  pay  for  this  "  drynkyng  for  his  soul ; "  and 
the  funeral  feast,  which  long  survived  in  the  distri- 
bution of  wine,  wafers,  and  rosemary,  still  endures 
as  a  slight  collation  of  wine  and  cake  in  Scotland, 
What  a  funeral  could  be,  as  late  as  1731,  Mr.  Ches- 
ter Waters  proves  by  the  bill  for  the  burial  of  An- 
drew Card,  senior  bencher  of  Gray's-inn.  The  de- 
ceased was  brave  in  a  "  superfine  pinked  shroud " 
(cheap  at  i/.  5^.  6d.),  and  there  were  eight  large 
plate  candlesticks  on  stands  round  the  dais,  and 
ninety-six  buckram  escutcheons.  The  pall-bearers 
wore  Alamode  hatbands  covered  with  frizances,  and 
so  did  the  divines  who  were  present  at  the  melan- 
choly but  gorgeous  function.  A  hundred  men  in 
mourning  carried  a  hundred  white  wax  branch 
lights,  and  the  gloves  of  the  porters  in  Gray's-inn 
were  ash-colored  with  black  points.  Yet  the  wine 
cost  no  more  than  i/.  iqj-.  6d. ;  a  "deal  of  sack,"  by 
no  means  "intolerable." 

Leaving  the  funerals,  we  find  that  the  parish  reg- 
ister sometimes  records  ancient  and  obsolete  modes 
of  death.  Thus,  martyrs  are  scarce  now,  but  the 
register  of  All  Saints',  Derby,  1556,  mentions  "a 
poor  blinde  woman  called  Joan  Waste,  of  this  par- 
ish, a  martyr,  burned  in  Windmill  pit."  She  was 
condemned  by  Ralph  Baynes,  Bishop  of  Coventry 
and  Lichfield.  In  1558,  at  Richmond  in  Yorkshire, 
we  find  "  Richard  Snell,  b'rnt,  bur.  9  Sept."  At 
Croydon,  in  1585,  Roger  Shepherd  probably  never 
expected  to  be  eaten  by  a  lioness.  Roger  was  not, 
like  Wyllyam  Barker,  "  a  common  drunkard  and 
blasphemer,"  and  we  cannot  regard  the  Croydon 
lioness,  like  the  Nemean  lion,  as  a  miraculous  mon- 
ster sent  against  the  county  of  Surrey  for  the  sins 


50  Books  and  Bookmen 

of  the  people.  The  lioness  '*  was  brought  into  the 
town  to  be  seen  of  such  as  would  give  money  to 
see  her.  He  "  (Roger)  "  was  sore  wounded  in  sun- 
dry places,  and  was  buried  the  26th  Aug." 

In  1590,  the  register  of  St.  Oswald's,  Durham,  in- 
forms us  that  "  Duke,  Hyll,  Hogge,  and  Holiday  " 
were  hanged  and  burned  for  "  there  horrible  of- 
fences." The  arm  of  one  of  these  horrible  offend- 
ers was  preserved  at  St.  Omer  as  the  relic  of  a 
martyr,  "a  most  precious  treasure,"  in  1686.  But 
no  one  knew  whether  the  arm  belonged  originally 
to  Holiday,  Hyll,  Duke,  or  Hogge.  The  coals, 
when  these  unfortunate  men  were  burned,  cost  six- 
pence ;  the  other  items  in  the  account  of  the  abom- 
inable execution  are,  perhaps,  too  repulsive  to  be 
quoted. 

According  to  some  critics  of  the  British  govern- 
ment, we  do  not  treat  the  Egyptians  well.  But  our 
conduct  towards  the  Fellahs  has  certainly  improved 
since  this  entry  was  made  in  the  register  of  St. 
Nicholas,  Durham  (1592,  August  8th):  "  Simson, 
Arington,  Featherston,  Fenwick,  and  Lancaster,  were 
hanged  for  being  Egyptians!'  They  were,  in  fact, 
gypsies,  or  had  been  consorting  with  gypsies,  and 
they  suffered  unden  5  KHz.  c.  20.  In  1783  this  stat- 
ute was  abolished,  and  was  even  considered  "a  law 
of  excessive  severity."  For  even  a  hundred  years 
ago  "the  puling  cant  of  sickly  humanitarianism  " 
was  making  itself  heard  to  the  injury  of  our  sturdy 
old  English  legislation.  To  be  killed  by  a  poet  is 
now  an  unusual  fate,  but  the  St.  Leonard's,  Shore- 
ditch,  register  (1598)  mentions  how  "Gabriel  Spen- 
cer, being  slayne,  was  buried."  Gabriel  was  "  slayne" 
by  Rare  Ben  Jonson,  in  Hoxton  Fields. 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  5/ 

The  burning  of  witches  is,  naturally,  not  an  un- 
common item  in  parish  registers,  and  is  set  forth  in 
a  bold,  business-like  manner.  On  August  21  (1650) 
fifteen  women  and  one  man  were  executed  for  the 
imaginary  crime  of  witchcraft.  "  A  grave,  for  a 
witch,  sixpence,"  is  an  item  in  the  municipal  ac- 
counts. And  the  grave  was  a  cheap  haven  for  the 
poor  woman  who  had  been  committed  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  a  Scotch  witch-trier.  Cetewayo's  medi- 
cine-men, who  "  smell  out "  witches,  are  only  some 
two  centuries  in  the  rear  of  our  civilization.  Three 
hundred  years  ago  Bishop  Jewell,  preaching  before 
Elizabeth,  was  quite  of  the  mind  of  Cetewayo  and 
Saul,  as  to  the  wickedness  of  suffering  a  witch  to 
live.  As  late  as  1691,  the  register  of  Holy  Island, 
Northumberland,  mentions  "  William  Cleugh,  be- 
witched to  death,"  and  the  superstition  is  almost  as 
powerful  as  ever  among  the  rural  people.  Between 
July  13  and  July  24  (1699)  the  widow  Comon,  in  Ks- 
sex,  was  thrice  swum  for  a  witch.  She  was  not 
drowned,  but  survived  her  immersion  for  only  five 
months.  A  singular  homicide  is  recorded  at  New- 
ington  Butts,  1689.  "John  Arris  and  Berwick  Far- 
lin  in  one  grave,  being  both  Dutch  soldiers  ;  one 
killed  the  other  drinking  brandy."  .  But  who  slew 
the  slayer .?  The  register  is  silent ;  but  "  often  eat- 
ing a  shoulder  of  mutton  or  a  peck  of  hasty  pudding 
at  a  time  caused  the  death  of  James  Parsons,"  at 
Teddington,  in  Middlesex,  1743.  Parsons  had  re- 
sisted the  effects  of  shoulders  of  mutton  and  hasty 
pudding  till  the  age  of  thirty-six. 

And  so  the  registers  run  on.  Sometimes  they 
tell  of  the  death  of  a  glutton,  sometimes  of  a  Grace 
wyfe  (grosse  femme).     Now  the  bell  tolls  for  the  de- 


52  Books  and  Bookmen 

cease  of  a  duke,  now  of  a  "  dog-whipper."  "  Luten- 
ists  "  and  "  Saltpetremen  "  —  the  skeleton  of  the  old 
German  allegory  whispers  to  each  and  twitches  him 
by  the  sleeve,  "  Ellis  Thompson,  insipiens"  leaves 
Chester-le-Street,  where  he  had  gabbled  and  scrab- 
bled on  the  doors,  and  follows  "  William,  foole  to  my 
Lady  Jerningham,"  and  "  Edward  Errington,  the 
Towne's  Fooll  "  (Newcastle-on-Tyne)  down  the  way 
to  dusty  death.  Edward  Errington  died  "  of  the 
pest,"  and  another  idiot  took  his  place  and  office,  for 
Newcastle  had  her  regular  town  fools  before  she  ac- 
quired her  singularly  independent  modern  represen- 
tative. The  "  aquavity  man  "  dies  (in  Cripplegate), 
and  the  "  dumb-man  who  was  a  fortune-teller  "  (Step- 
ney, 1628),  and  the  "  King's  Falkner,"  and  Mr.  Greg- 
ory Isham,  who  combined  the  professions,  not  fre- 
quently united,  of  "  attorney  and  husbandman,"  in 
Harwell,  Leicestershire  (1655).  "The  lame  chim- 
ney-sweeper," and  the  "King  of  the  gypsies,"  and 
Alexander  Willis,  "  qui  calographiam  docuit,"  the 
linguist,  and  the  Tom  o'  Bedlam,  the  comfit-maker, 
and  the  panyer-man,  and  the  tack-maker,  and  the  sui- 
cide, they  all  found  death  ;  or,  if  they  sought  him, 
the  churchyard  where  they  were  "hurled  into  a 
grave "  was  interdicted,  and  purified,  after  a  fort- 
night, with  "frankincense  and  sweet  perfumes,  and 
herbs." 

Sometimes  people  died  wholesale  of  pestilence, 
and  the  Longborough  register  mentions  a  fresh  way 
of  death,  "the  swat  called  New  Acquaintatice,  alias 
Stoupe  Knave,  and  know  thy  mastery  Another  mal- 
ady was  "  the  posting  swet,  that  posted  from  towne 
to  towne  through  England."  The  plague  of  1591 
was  imported  in  bales  of  cloth  from  the  Levant,  just 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers  5^ 

as  British  commerce  still  patriotically  tries  to  intro- 
duce cholera  in  cargoes  of  Egyptian  rags.  The  reg- 
ister of  Malpas,  in  Cheshire  (Aug.  24,  1625),  has  this 
strange  story  of  the  plague  :  — 

"  Richard  Dawson  being  sicke  of  the  plague,  and 
perceiving  he  must  die  at  yt  time,  arose  out  of  his 
bed,  and  made  his  grave,  and  caused  his  nefew,  John 
Dawson,  to  cast  strawe  into  the  grave  which  was 
not  farre  from  the  house,  and  went  and  lay'd  him 
down  in  the  say'd  grave,  and  caused  clothes  to  be 
lay'd  uppon,  and  so  dep'ted  out  of  this  world ;  this 
he  did  because  he  was  a  strong  man,  and  heavier 
than  his  said  nefew  and  another  wench  were  able  to 
bury." 

And  John  Dawson  died,  and  Rose  Smyth,  the 
"  wench  "  already  spoken  of,  died,  the  last  of  the 
household. 

Old  customs  survive  in  the  parish  registers. 
Scolding  wives  were  ducked,  and  in  Kingston-on- 
Thames,  1572,  the  register  tells  how  the  sexton's 
wife  "was  sett  on  a  new  cukking-stoole,  and  brought 
to  Temes  brydge,  and  there  had  three  duckings  over 
head  and  eres,  because  she  was  a  common  scold  and 
fighter."  The  cucking-stool,  a  very  elaborate  engine 
of  the  law,  cost  i/.  3J.  ^.d.  Men  were  ducked  for 
beating  their  wives,  and  if  that  custom  were  revived 
the  profession  of  cucking-stool  maker  would  become 
busy  and  lucrative.  Penances  of  a  graver  sort  are 
on  record  in  the  registers.  Margaret  Sherioux,  in 
Croydon  (1597),  was  ordered  to  stand  three  market 
days  in  the  town,  and  three  Sundays  in  the  church, 
in  a  white  sheet.  The  sin  imputed  to  her  was  a 
dreadful  one.  "  She  stood  one  Saturday,  and  one 
Sunday,  and  died  the  next."     Innocent  or  guilty, 


$4  Books  and  Bookmen 

this  world  was  no  longer  a  fit  abiding-place  for 
Margaret  Sherioux.  Occasionally  the  keeper  of  the 
register  entered  any  event  which  seemed  out  of  the 
common.  Thus  the  register  of  St.  Nicholas,  Dur- 
ham (1568),  has  this  contribution  to  natural  his- 
tory :  — 

"  A  certaine  Italian  brought  into  the  cittie  of  Dur- 
ham a  very  greate  strange  and  monstrous  serpent, 
in  length  sixteen  feet,  in  quantitie  and  dimentions 
greater  than  a  greate  horse,  which  was  taken  and 
killed  by  special  policie,  Ethiopia  within  the  Turkas 
dominions.  But  before  it  was  killed,  it  had  devoured 
(as  is  credibly  thought)  more  than  1,000  persons, 
and  destroyed  a  great  country." 

This  must  have  been  a  descendant  of  the  monster 
that  would  have  eaten  Andromeda,  and  was  slain  by 
Perseus  in  the  country  of  the  blameless  Ethiopians. 
Collections  of  money  are  recorded  occasionally,  as 
in  1680,  when  no  less  than  one  pound  eight  shil- 
lings was  contributed  "  for  redemption  of  Christians 
(taken  by  ye  Turkish  pyrates)  out  of  Turkish  slav- 
ery." Two  hundred  years  ago  the  Turk  was  pretty 
"  unspeakable  "  still.  Of  all  blundering  Dogberries, 
the  most  confused  kept  (in  1670)  the  parish  register 
at  Melton  Mowbray  :  — 

"  Here  [he  writes]  is  a  bill  of  Burton  Lazareth's 
people,  which  was  buried,  and  which  was  and  maried 
above  10  years  old,  for  because  the  clarke  was  dead, 
and  therefore  they  was  not  set  down  according  as 
they  was,  but  they  all  set  down  sure  enough  one 
among  another  here  in  this  place." 

"  They  all  set  down  sure  enough,"  nor  does  it  mat- 
ter much  now  to  know  whom  they  married,  and  how 
long  they  lived  in  Melton  Mowbray.     The  following 


Curiosities  of  Parish  Registers 


^5 


entry  sufficed  for  the  great  Villiers  that  expired  "  in 
the  worst  inn's  worst  room,"  —  "Kirkby  Moorside, 
Yorkshire,   1687.      Georges  vilaris    Lord  dooke  of 
Bookingham,  bur.  17.  April." 
"  So  much  for  Buckingham  !  " 


Cl^e  xoofemen  at  iSome 


&.R4tH  QUO 


Z^t  "Boo^mm  at  ISome 


LMOST  every  city,  it  has  been 
said,  possesses  its  own  distinctive 
color,  and  it  may  be  added  that 
every  historical  centre  of  human 
life  has  its  own  sentiment,  its  pe- 
culiar way  of  affecting  us  as  a 
whole.  Thus  there  are  living 
cities,  and  dead  cities,  and  cities 
which  may  be  called  half  alive,  when  their  present 
quiet  is  compared  with  the  excitement  of  their  past 
existence.  The  interest  of  these  is  naturally  a  some- 
what melancholy  one ;  but  it  varies  in  various  places, 
and  a  man  carries  away  very  different  impressions 
from  Venice  and  from  Athens.  But  the  city  which 
has  the  most  singular  charm,  and  the  charm  that 
has  been  most  widely  felt,  is  of  course  Rome.  The 
spectacle  of  the  city  which  was  once,  in  a  sense, 
commensurate  with  the  world  appeals  to  the  imagi- 
nation in  the  same  way  as  the  spectacle  of  the  world 
itself  appeals  to  it,  and  in  Rome  we  read  the  lesson 
of  life  writ  small  and  close.  It  was  not  without  a 
meaning  that  the  old  sculptors  represented  Rome 
with  the  chaplet  of  towers  which  was  worn  also  by 
Cybele,  the  mother  of   the  gods,  so  that  it  is  not 


6o  Books  and  Bookmen 

always  easy  to  distinguish  their  statues.  Rome  was 
indeed,  as  Spenser  translates  Du  Bellay :  — 

"  Such  as  the  Berecynthian  Goddess  bright, 

In  her  swift  chariot,  with  high  turrets  crowned, 
Proud  that  so  many  Gods  she  brought  to  light ; 
Such  was  this  city  in  her  good  days  found." 

She  protected  the  gods  of  all  the  nations,  if  she  did 
not  bring  them  to  light,  and  the  awe  caused  by  the 
expectation  of  her  dateless  period  of  power  inspired 
the  ^neid,  and  procured  for  her  the  worship  of 
many  cities  of  Asia,  and  for  her  seat  on  the  seven 
hills  the  name  of  "the  earthly  Olympus." 

No  doubt  the  most  striking  and  the  earliest  im- 
pression which  the  mind  receives  from  Rome  is  that 
of  the  perished  greatness  of  her  past,  and  of  the 
vast  labors  the  ruins  of  which  cumber  her  soil. 
Thus  Rome  has  proved  a  trial  to  the  pilgrims  of 
sentiment,  at  whatever  period  of  modern  times 
they  have  visited  her.  They  have  said,  with  the 
learned  Poggius,  as  quoted  or  paraphrased  by  Gib- 
bon, that  "  the  temple  is  overthrown,  the  gold  has 
been  pillaged,  the  wheel  of  fortune  has  accomplished 
her  revolution."  They  have  felt,  like  Clough,  "  that 
all  the  incongruous  things  of  past  incompatible  ages 
seem  to  be  treasured  up  here  to  make  fools  of  pres- 
ent and  future."  But  these  are  the  mistakes  of  sen- 
timentalists ;  and  the  real  charm  of  Rome  lies  in 
the  fact  that,  among  the  dust  of  her  ruins,  she  is 
still,  and  has  always  been,  the  unexhausted  mother 
of  new  forces.  From  her  deep  foundations  —  "  pro- 
fondes  jusques  aux  antipodes,"  says  Montaigne, 
though  Mr.  Parker  has  not  pushed  his  excavations 
so  far  —  to  the  guard-rooms  of  the  national  soldiery 
of  Italy,  she  has  been,  among  all  her  changes,  the 


The  Bookmen  at  Rome  6i 

mistress  rather  than  the  sport  of  change.  We  can 
never  say  with  truth  that  the  wheel  of  fortune  has 
accomplished  her  revolution  in  the  city  which  Maz- 
zini  called  "  the  guide  of  nations  and  of  humanity." 
Thus  the  sight  of  Rome  is  a  kind  of  test  of  the 
spirit  and  courage  that  are  in  men.  If  they  are 
mere  sentimentalists  they  will  be  struck,  as  senti- 
mentalists are  struck  in  view  of  mountains  and  of 
the  sea,  by  a  sense  of  human  impotence  and  fragil- 
ity. If  they  are  of  stouter  hearts,  they  will  feel 
encouraged  by  the  thought  of  man's  endurance 
and  persistent  conflict  with  destiny.  And  even 
when  they  are  saddened,  on  the  whole,  by  the  in- 
fluence of  Rome,  they  will  recognize  in  it  a  curious 
and  inexplicable  sort  of  attraction. 

No  one  shows  worse,  when  tried  by  the  test  of 
Rome,  than  Chateaubriand.  One  of  the  earliest 
of  the  sentimental  travelers  of  the  century,  he  was 
also  perhaps  the  most  dismal.  In  reading  his  lam- 
entations over  the  Eternal  City,  one  can  hardly  help 
sympathizing  with  Heine  when  he  compares  Cha- 
teaubriand to  Angeli,  the  funereal  court  jester  of 
Louis  XIII.  At  Rome  Chateaubriand  wags  his 
black  bonnet  most  mournfully,  and  produces  the 
most  lugubrious  music  from  its  bells.  He  crosses 
the  Campagna,  "  these  inania  regna,  empty  domains 
that  once  were  crowded  with  the  homes  of  men.  In 
the  distance  Rome  appears,"  he  says,  "  as  if  it  rose  to 
meet  you  from  the  grave  where  it  is  laid,"  "  Rome's 
ghost  since  her  decease,"  says  Mr.  Browning,  by  a 
curious  coincidence,  —  and  the  figure  is  found  in  an 
earlier  poet,  in  Joachim  du  Bellay,  thus  translated 
by  Spenser  :  — 


6a  Books  and  Bookmen 

"  If  the  shade  of  Rome 
May  of  the  body  yield  a  seeming  sight, 

'T  is  like  a  corse  drawn  forth  out  of  the  tomb 
By  magicke  skill  out  of  eternal  night." 

"  Imagine,"   Chateaubriand  goes  on  with  his  fune- 
real pomp  of  style,  —  "  imagine  something  of  the 
desolation  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  of  which  the  Scrip- 
ture speaks ;    a   silence  and   a  solitude  as  vast  as 
were  the  noise  and  turmoil  of  the  men  who  once 
crowded,    so   many   and   so   eager,   upon    this    soil. 
Here  and  there  you   see   some   traces   of   Roman 
roads,  in  places  where  no  one  goes  any  more,  and 
here  and  there  some  dry  beds  of  the  winter  torrents. 
These  watercourses  look  from  a  distance  like  great 
frequented  ways,  and  they  are  but  the  empty  bed  of 
a  stormy  stream,  which  has  vanished  like  the  Ro- 
man people.     Nothing  but  ruin  seems  to  flourish  in 
a  soil  composed  of  the  dust  of  the  dead,  and  of  the 
ashes  of  empire."     This  is  Chateaubriand's  favorite 
and  monotonous  moral.      The  task  of  welding  na- 
tions together,  of  establishing  the  Roman   power, 
of  giving  laws  to  the  world,  and  of  making  smooth 
the  way  for  Christianity  was  no  more  to  him  than 
the  counterpart  in  human  history  of  the  raging  of  a 
winter   torrent.      Rome,    in   his  view,  was    utterly 
dead  ;  and  he  would  have  been  delighted  with  Mr. 
Ruskin's  figure,  which  sets  forth  how  "  the  shattered 
aqueducts,  pier  beyond  pier,  melt  into  the  darkness 
like  shadowy  and  countless  troops  of  funeral  mourn- 
ers, passing  from  a  nation's  grave."     In  Chateau- 
briand's eyes,  as  in  Byron's,  "  History,  with  all  her 
volumes  vast,  hath  but  one  page,"  and  on  that  is 
written  sic  transit  gloria.     "  Rome  is  a  fair  place," 
he  says,  "wherein  to  forget  all,  to  despise  all,  and 


The  Bookmen  at  Rome  6^ 

to  die,"  as  if  there  were  a  single  spot  in  the  world 
where  it  was  less  possible  to  forget,  and  more  nec- 
essary to  remember,  the  past  of  our  race. 

When  Chateaubriand  enjoyed  these  "merry  days 
of  desolation,"  to  use  Costard's  phrase,  at  Rome,  he 
was  apparently  in  a  pagan  and  hopeless  mood.  We 
find  him  in  Rome  once  more,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later ;  but  now  he  is  Christian  and  hopeful.  The 
change  did  not,  however,  make  him  a  whit  less  fu- 
nereal and  sentimental ;  his  fancy  still  ran  on 
death's-heads  and  pompes  funebres.  "  If  a  man  be 
a  Christian,"  he  wrote,  "  how  can  he  tear  himself 
from  this  soil  which  has  become  his  fatherland  ; 
this  earth  that  has  beheld  the  birth  of  a  new  em- 
pire, more  holy  in  its  cradle,  more  noble  in  its  do- 
minion, than  the  power  that  went  before  it  ;  this 
soil  where  the  friends  whom  we  have  lost  share  the 
sleep  of  the  martyrs  in  the  catacombs  ? "  and  so  on. 

There  is  happily  an  abundance  of  antidotes  to 
this  poetical  piety  and  elegant  regret  ;  and  none  is 
better  than  that  which  Montaigne  gives  us  in  his 
musings  over  Rome.  To  Montaigne  the  city  seemed 
to  whisper  the  maxims  of  her  own  imperial  philos- 
opher, and  such  sayings  of  Marcus  Aurelius  as  this : 
"  Consider  the  life  led  by  others  in  olden  time,  and 
the  life  of  those  who  shall  come  after  thee,  a;id  be 
of  good  cheery  In  a  spirit  of  good  cheer,  Montaigne 
let  the  spectacle  of  Rome  awaken  and  intensify  his 
curious  interest  in  human  fortunes.  The  sight  of 
the  scene  of  change  did  not  subdue,  but  rather  for- 
tified him.  "  Tant  de  remuements  d'estats  et  change- 
ments  de  fortune  publique  nous  instruisent  ^  ne  pas 
faire  grand  miracle  de  la  nostre."  He  pleases  him- 
self with  the  thought  that  he  himself  is  civis  Roma' 


64  Books  and  Bookmen 

nus,  not  only  because  Rome  is  the  city  metropolitan 
of  all  Christian  nations,  but  because  he  has  actually 
been  presented  with  a  diploma  of  burghership. 
"Among  the  empty  favors  of  Fortune,"  he  writes, 
"  there  is  none  that  I  prize  more  than  this."  He 
feels  that  he  now  owes  a  double  affection  to  his 
dead  fellow-citizens,  Scipio  and  Metellus,  Tullus  and 
Ancus.  "  Reverence  for  the  dead  passes  for  a  duty, 
and  I  have  been  nourished  from  my  childhood  in 
the  memory  of  the  dead  men  who  lie  here,  I  have 
the  conditions  and  fortune  of  Metellus  and  Scipio 
more  often  in  my  mind  than  those  of  any  men  of 
our  own  time  ;  they  are  dead  and  gone,  and  so  is 
my  father,  even  as  they,  and  hath  been  sundered  as 
far  from  me  and  life  in  these  eighteen  years  as  they 
in  sixteen  centuries,  whose  memory,  whose  love,  for 
all  that,  I  cease  not  to  embrace  in  dear  and  constant 
union.  Finding  myself  of  no  avail  in  this  present 
time,  I  betake  myself  to  that  past  date,  and  am  so 
captivated  therewith  that  the  condition  of  old  Rome, 
free  and  flourishing,  —  I  love  not  much  her  birth  or 
her  old  age,  —  fills  me  with  passionate  affection, 
and  I  can  never  see  so  often  the  site  of  those  houses 
and  streets,  and  of  these  ruins,  with  foundations 
deep  as  the  antipodes,  but  that  I  take  new  delight 
in  them." 

This  sense  of  strength  and  comfort  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  remains  of  strength  and  courage  gone 
by  was  felt  by  Goethe  not  less  than  by  Montaigne. 
It  was  fortunate,  perhaps,  that  Goethe  did  not  visit 
Rome  too  early  in  life.  He  had  written  the  '  Sor- 
rows of  Young  Werther,'  and  had  in  other  ways  got 
rid  of  the  more  perilous  stuff  of  sentiment,  before 
he  was  exposed  to  the  trial  of  seeing  "  the  monu- 


The  Bookmen  at  Rome  6^ 

ment  and  sepulchre  of  the  world."  More  than  any 
other  of  the  pilgrims  who  have  left  a  record  of  their 
emotions,  Goethe  seems  to  have  felt  at  Rome  a 
sense  of  the  richness,  the  happiness,  of  existence. 
"  Here,"  he  wrote,  "  I  am  at  my  ease,  and  shall  be, 
it  seems,  at  rest  for  all  my  days."  Again  :  "  I  have 
scarcely  any  new  thoughts,  I  have  found  nothing 
unfamiliar,  but  my  old  ideas  have  become  so  defi- 
nite, so  living,  that  they  might  pass  for  new."  In 
Rome  he  entered  into  the  fullness  of  the  labors  of 
the  past,  and  into  the  fullness  of  his  own  life.  It 
was  characteristic  of  him  that,  among  all  the  fallen 
fanes,  he  found  one  still  unshaken  :  — 

"  Ein  einziger  Tempel, 
Amor's  Tempel." 

In  his  old  age  remembrance  was  not  regret.  "  Only 
in  Rome,"  he  told  Eckermann,  "  have  I  felt  what  it 
really  is  to  be  a  man.  .  .  .  Compared  with  my  situ- 
ation at  Rome,  I  have  never  since  felt  real  glad- 
ness." 

Goethe,  after  all,  as  Mr.  Arnold  says,  "pursued  a 
lonely  road."  It  is  impossible  for  every  one  to  reach 
his  imperial  philosophy  of  joy,  as  well  as  of  calm 
and  resignation.  To  those  who  visit  Rome,  and  who 
do  not  merely  remark,  with  Clough's  young  lady, 
that  "  Rome  is  a  wonderful  place,  not  very  gay,  how- 
ever ;  the  English  are  mostly  at  Naples,"  there  must 
come  moments  of  oppression  and  of  disappointment. 
They  will  find  no  more  sympathetic  companion  than 
'  Les  Regrets '  and  other  Roman  sonnets  of  the  old 
French  poet,  Joachim  du  Bellay.  He  compressed 
into  the  space  of  some  thirty  poems  all  the  various 
feelings  of  sadness,  of  homesickness,  of  weariness, 
and  also  the  strange  love  and  involuntary  attach- 


66  Books  and  Bookmen 

ment  that  Rome  can  inspire  in  the  heart  of  the  ex- 
ile. His  four  years  of  residence  in  Rome,  whither 
he  had  accompanied  his  relative  the  Cardinal  du 
Bellay,  were  at  first  as  dreary  as  Ovid's  banishment 
at  Tomi.  He  sighed  for  /a  douceur  Angevine,  the 
soft  air  of  Anjou,  and  did  not  find  consolation,  like 
Goethe,  in  Amor's  Temple.  It  is  chiefly  in  '  Les 
Antiquites,'  the  "  Ruynes  of  Rome,"  as  Spenser  has 
it,  that  he  gives  expression  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
place.  At  first  this  string  of  cameos  in  sonnets,  as 
he  calls  them,  only  shows  pictures  of  depression. 
Like  Chateaubriand,  Du  Bellay  compares  the  an- 
cient impetus  of  the  Roman  people  to  the  rage  of 
blind  natural  powers  :  — 

"  As  waves,  as  winds,  as  fire  spread  over  all, 
Till  it  by  fatal  doom  adown  did  fall." 

Nothing  of  her  old  estate  remains  save  "  Tyber  has- 
tening to  his  fall."  The  Seven  Hills  are  no  longer 
the  "Olympus  on  earth,"  but  the  weights  with  which 
heaven  crushes  down  the  vanquished  Titan.  The 
cycle  of  the  destinies  of  Rome  is  compared  to  the 
cycle  of  the  world.  She  has  spoiled  the  nations,  and 
the  nations  have  spoiled  her  in  turn.  It  is  all  a  les- 
son to  us  to  make  no  great  marvel  of  our  own  con- 
dition :  — 

"  For  if  that  Time  make  end  of  things  so  sure, 
He  als  will  end  the  paine  that  I  endure." 

But  at  last  even  Du  Bellay  perceives  that  the  force 
of  the  city  has  not  perished,  that  "the  Demon  of 
Rome  doth  himself  renew."  This  Demon  is  spoken 
of  again  as  the  spirit  which  binds  him  to  Rome  "  by 
a  chain  of  sweet  regret." 

And  this,  perhaps,  is  the  experience  of  most  peo- 
ple.    They  are  saddened,  chilled,  wearied  at  first, 


The  Bookmen  at  Rome 


67 


and  bewildered  ;  like  Hawthorne,  perhaps,  they  can 
"  never  say  how  they  dislike  the  place."  And  then 
the  DcBtnon  du  lieu  of  Du  Bellay  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  attraction  of  the  human  life  and  effort  that 
made  and  still  haunt  Rome  —  becomes  stronger 
than  weariness  and  depression.  Like  Clough,  peo- 
ple will  ask  themselves  :  — 

"  Does  there  a  spirit  we  know  not  though  seek,  though  we  find  com- 
prehend not, 
Here  to  entice  and  confuse,  tempt  and  evade  us,  abide  ?  " 

To  a  few,  perhaps,  as  to  the  strange  child  Hawthorne 
speaks  of  in  his  '  Note-Books,'  "  the  rest  of  life  is  to 
be  a  dream  of  this  city  of  the  soul,  and  an  unsatis- 
fied longing  to  come  back  to  it."  It  is  more  pleas- 
ant to  believe  in  the  magical  virtue  of  the  waters  of 
the  Fountain  of  Trevi. 


'BibKomania  in  fxmct 


'Bibliomania  in  france 


HE  love  of  books  for  their  own 
sake,  for  their  paper,  print,  bind- 
ing, and  for  their  associations,  as 
distinct  from  the  love  of  litera- 
ture, is  a  stronger  a'nd  more  uni- 
versal passion  in  France  than 
elsewhere  in  Europe.  In  Eng- 
land publishers  are  men  of  busi- 
ness ;  in  France  they  aspire  to  be  artists.  In  Eng- 
land people  borrow  what  they  read  from  thelibraries, 
and  take  what  gaudy  cloth-binding  chance  chooses 
to  send  them.  In  France  people  buy  books,  and 
bind  them  to  their  heart's  desire  with  quaint  and 
dainty  devices  on  the  morocco  covers.  Books  are 
life-long  friends  in  that  country  ;  in  England  they 
are  the  guests  of  a  week  or  of  a  fortnight.  The 
greatest  French  writers  have  been  collectors  of  cu- 
rious editions  ;  they  have  devoted  whole  treatises  to 
the  love  of  books.  The  literature  and  history  of 
France  are  full  of  anecdotes  of  the  good  and  bad 
fortunes  of  bibliophiles,  of  their  bargains,  discover- 
ies, disappointments.  There  lies  before  us  at  this 
moment  a  small  library  of  books  about  books,  —  the 
'  Bibliophile  Fran^ais,'  in  seven  large  volumes,  *  Les 


72  Books  and  Bookmen 

Sonnets  d'un  Bibliophile,'  '  La  Bibliomanie  en  1878,* 
*  Un  Bouquiniste  Parisien,'  and  a  dozen  other  works 
of  Janin,  Nodier,  Bennet,  Pieters,  Didot,  great  col- 
lectors who  have  written  for  the  instruction  of  be- 
ginners and  the  pleasure  of  every  one  who  takes 
delight  in  printed  paper. 

The  passion  for  books,  like  other  forms  of  desire, 
has  its  changes  of  fashion.  It  is  not  always  easy  to 
justify  the  caprices  of  taste.  The  presence  or  ab- 
sence of  half  an  inch  of  paper  in  the  "uncut"  margin 
of  a  book  makes  a  difference  of  value  that  ranges 
from  five  shillings  to  a  hundred  pounds.  Some 
books  are  run  after  because  they  are  beautifully 
bound ;  some  are  competed  for  with  equal  eager- 
ness because  they  never  have  been  bound  at  all. 
The  uninitiated  often  make  absurd  mistakes  about 
these  distinctions.  Some  time  ago  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph reproached  a  collector  because  his  books  were 
"uncut,"  whence,  argued  the  journalist,  it  was  clear 
that  he  had  never  read  them.  "  Uncut,"  of  course, 
only  means  that  the  margins  have  not  been  curtailed 
by  the  binders'  tools.  It  is  a  point  of  sentiment  to 
like  books  just  as  they  left  the  hands  of  the  old 
printers,  —  of  Estienne,  Aldus,  or  Louis  Elzevir. 

It  is  because  the  passion  for  books  is  a  senti- 
mental passion  that  people  who  have  not  felt  it  al- 
ways fail  to  understand  it.  Sentiment  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  explain.  Englishmen  especially  find 
it  impossible  to  understand  tastes  and  emotions  that 
are  not  their  own,  —  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  the  as- 
pirations of  Eastern  Roumelia,  the  infatuated  pas- 
sion for  a  white  flag  of  the  late  Comte  de  Chambord. 
If  we  are  to  understand  the  book-hunter,  we  must 
never  forget  that  to  him  books  are,  in  the  first  place, 


Bihliomania  in  France  73 

relics.  He  likes  to  think  that  the  great  writers 
whom  he  admires  handled  just  such  pages  and  saw 
such  an  arrangement  of  type  as  he  now  beholds. 
Moliere,  for  example,  corrected  the  proofs  for  this 
edition  of  the  *  Precieuses  Ridicules,'  when  he  first 
discovered  "  what  a  labor  it  is  to  publish  a  book,  and 
how  green  {neuf)  an  author  is  the  first  time  they 
print  him."  Or  it  may  be  that  Campanella  turned 
over,  with  hands  unstrung,  and  still  broken  by  the 
torture,  these  leaves  that  contain  his  passionate  son- 
nets. Here  again  is  the  copy  of  Theocritus  from 
which  some  page  may  have  been  read  aloud  to 
charm  the  pagan  and  pontifical  leisure  of  Leo  X. 
This  Gargantua  is  the  counterpart  of  that  which  the 
martyred  Dolet  printed  for  (or  pirated  from,  alas  !) 
Maitre  Francois  Rabelais.  This  woful  ballade,  with 
the  wood-cut  of  three  thieves  hanging  from  one  gal- 
lows, came  near  being  the  "  Last  Dying  Speech  and 
Confession  of  Francois  Villon."  This  shabby  copy 
of  *  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes '  is  precisely  like  that 
which  Shelley  doubled  up  and  thrust  into  his  pocket 
when  the  prow  of  the  piratical  felucca  crushed  into 
the  timbers  of  the  Dojt  Juan.  Some  rare  books 
have  these  associations,  and  they  bring  you  nearer 
to  the  authors  than  do  the  modern  reprints.  Biblio- 
philes will  tell  you  that  it  is  the  early  readings  they 
care  for, — the  author's  first  fancies,  and  those  more 
hurried  expressions  which  he  afterwards  corrected. 
These  readings  have  their  literary  value,  especially 
in  the  masterpieces  of  the  great ;  but  the  sentiment 
after  all  is  the  main  thing. 

Other  books  come  to  be  relics  in  another  way. 
They  are  the  copies  which  belonged  to  illustrious 
people, — to  the  famous  collectors  who  make  a  kind 


74  Books  and  Bookmen 

of  catena  (a  golden  chain  of  bibliophiles)  through  the 
centuries  since  printing  was  invented.  There  are 
Grolier  (1479-1565), —  not  a  bookbinder,  as  the  Eng- 
lish Daily  Telegraph  supposed  (probably  when  Mr. 
Sala  was  on  his  travels),  —  De  Thou  (1553-1617), 
the  great  Colbert,  the  Due  de  la  Valliere  (1708- 
1780),  Charles  Nodier  a  man  of  yesterday,  M.  Didot, 
and  the  rest,  too  numerous  to  name.  Again,  there 
are  the  books  of  kings,  like  Francis  I.,  Henri  III., 
and  Louis  XIV.  These  princes  had  their  favorite 
devices.  Nicola^/  Eve,  Padeloup,  Derome,  and  other 
artists  arrayed  meir  books  in  morocco, — tooled  with 
skulls,  cross-bones,  and  crucifixions  for  the  voluptu- 
ous pietist  Henri  HI,,  with  the  salamander  for  Fran- 
cis I.,  and  powdered  with  fleurs  de  lys  for  the  mon- 
arch who  "  was  the  State."  There  are  relics  also  of 
noble  beauties.  The  volumes  of  Marguerite  d'An- 
gouleme  are  covered  with  golden  daisies.  Diane  de 
Poictiers  has  her  crescents  and  her  bow,  and  the 
fanciful  and  gracious  contrivances  that  link  her  ini- 
tial with  that  of  her  royal  lover.  The  cipher  of 
Marie  Antoinette  adorns  too  many  books  that  Ma- 
dame du  Barry  might  have  welcomed  to  her  hastily 
improvised  library.  The  three  daughters  of  Louis 
XV.  had  their  favorite  colors  of  morocco,  citron,  red, 
and  olive,  and  their  books  are  valued  as  much  as  if 
they  bore  the  bees  of  De  Thou,  or  the  intertwined 
Cs  of  the  illustrious  and  ridiculous  Abbe  Cotin,  the 
Trissotin  of  the  comedy.  Surely  in  all  these  things 
there  is  a  human  interest,  and  our  fingers  are  faintly 
thrilled,  as  we  touch  these  books,  with  the  far-off 
contact  of  the  hands  of  kings  and  cardinals,  schol- 
ars and  coquettes,  pedants,  poets,  and  prkieuses,  the 
people  who  are  unforgotten  in  the  mob  that  inhab- 
ited dead  centuries. 


Bibliomania  in  France  7^ 

So  universal  and  ardent  has  the  love  of  magnifi- 
cent books  been  in  France,  that  it  would  be  possible 
to  write  a  kind  of  bibliomaniac  history  of  that  coun- 
try. All  her  rulers,  kings,  cardinals,  and  women 
have  had  time  to  spare  for  collecting.  Without  go- 
ing too  far  back,  to  the  time  when  Bertha  span  and 
Charlemagne  was  an  amateur,  we  may  give  a  few 
specimens  of  an  anecdotical  history  of  French  bibli- 
olatry,  beginning,  as  is  courteous,  with  a  lady.  "  Can 
a  woman  be  a  bibliophile } "  is  a  question  which  was 
once  discussed  at  the  weekly  breakfast  party  of 
Guilbert  de  Pixerecourt,  the  famous  book-lover  and 
playwright,  the  "  Corneille  of  the  Boulevards."  The 
controversy  glided  into  a  discussion  as  to  "  how 
many  books  a  man  can  love  at  a  time  ; "  but  histor- 
ical examples  prove  that  French  women  (and  Ital- 
ian, witness  the  Princess  d'Este)  may  be  bibliophiles 
of  the  true  strain.  Diane  de  Poictiers  was  their  il- 
lustrious patroness.  The  mistress  of  Henri  II.  pos- 
sessed, in  the  Chateau  d'Anet,  a  library  of  the  first 
triumphs  of  typography.  Her  taste  was  wide  in 
range,  including  songs,  plays,  romances,  divinity  ; 
her  copies  of  the  Fathers  were  bound  in  citron  mo- 
rocco, stamped  with  her  arms  and  devices,  and 
closed  with  clasps  of  silver.  In  the  love  of  books,  as 
in  everything  else,  Diane  and  Henri  II.  were  insep- 
arable. The  interlaced  H  and  B  are  scattered  over 
the  covers  of  their  volumes  ;  the  lily  of  France  is 
twined  round  the  crescents  of  Diane,  or  round  the 
quiver,  the  arrows,  and  the  bow  which  she  adopted 
as  her  cognizance,  in  honor  of  the  maiden  goddess. 
The  books  of  Henri  and  of  Diane  remained  in  the 
Chateau  d'Anet  till  the  death  of  the  Princesse  Conde 
in  1723,  when  they  were  dispersed.     The  son  of  the 


76  Books  and  Bookmen 

famous  Madame  de  Guyon  bought  the  greater  part 
of  the  library,  which  has  since  been  scattered  again 
and  again.  M.  Leopold  Double,  a  well-known  bibli- 
ophile, possessed  several  examples, 

Henri  III.  scarcely  deserves,  perhaps,  the  name  of 
a  book-lover,  for  he  probably  never  read  the  works 
which  were  bound  for  him  in  the  most  elaborate 
way.  But  that  great  historian,  Alexandre  Dumas, 
takes  a  far  more  friendly  view  of  the  king's  studies, 
and,  in  '  La  Dame  de  Monsoreau '  introduces  us  to 
a  learned  monarch.  Whether  he  cared  for  the  con- 
tents of  his  books  or  not,  his  books  are  among  the 
most  singular  relics  of  a  character  which  excites 
even  morbid  curiosity.  No  more  debauched  and 
worthless  wretch  ever  filled  a  throne  ;  but,  like  the 
bad  man  in  Aristotle,  Henri  HI.  was  "full  of  repent- 
ance." When  he  was  not  dancing  in  an  unseemly 
revel,  he  was  on  his  knees  in  his  chapel.  The  board 
of  one  of  his  books,  of  which  an  engraving  lies  be- 
fore me,  bears  his  cipher  and  crown  in  the  corners  ; 
but  the  centre  is  occupied  in  front  with  a  picture  of 
the  Annunciation,  while  on  the  back  is  the  crucifix- 
ion and  the  bleeding  heart  through  which  the  swords 
have  pierced.  His  favorite  device  was  the  death's- 
head,  with  the  motto  Memento  Mori,  or  Spes  ntea 
Deus.  While  he  was  still  only  Due  d'Anjou,  Henri 
loved  Marie  de  Cleves,  Princesse  de  Conde.  On 
her  sudden  death  he  expressed  his  grief,  as  he  had 
done  his  piety,  by  aid  of  the  petits  fers  of  the  book- 
binder. Marie's  initials  were  stamped  on  his  book- 
covers  in  a  chaplet  of  laurels.  In  one  corner  a  skull 
and  cross-bones  were  figured  ;  in  the  other  the 
motto  Mart  mest  vie ;  while  two  large  objects,  which 
did  duty  for  tears,  filled  up  the  lower  corners.     The 


Bihliomania  in  France  yy 

books  of  Henri  III.,  even  when  they  are  absolutely- 
worthless  as  literature,  sell  for  high  prices  ;  and  an 
inane  treatise  on  theology,  decorated  with  his  sa- 
cred emblems,  lately  brought  about  ;!^  120  in  a  Lon- 
don sale. 

Francis  I.,  as  a  patron  of  all  the  arts,  was  natu- 
rally an  amateur  of  bindings.  The  fates  of  books 
were  curiously  illustrated  by  the  story  of  the  copy 
of  Homer,  on  large  paper,  which  Aldus,  the  great 
Venetian  printer,  presented  to  Francis  I.  After  the 
death  of  the  late  Marquis  of  Hastings,  better  known 
as  an  owner  of  horses  than  of  books,  his  possessions 
were  brought  to  the  hammer.  With  the  instinct, 
the  flair,  as  the  French  say,  of  the  bibliophile,  M. 
Ambroise  Firmin  Didot,  the  biographer  of  Aldus, 
guessed  that  the  marquis  might  have  owned  some- 
thing in  his  line.  He  sent  his  agent  over  to  Eng- 
land, to  the  country  town  where  the  sale  was  to  be 
held.  M.  Didot  had  his  reward.  Among  the  books 
which  were  dragged  out  of  some  mouldy  store-room 
was  the  very  Aldine  Homer  of  Francis  I.,  with  part 
of  the  original  binding  still  clinging  to  the  leaves. 
M.  Didot  purchased  the  precious  relic,  and  sent  it 
to  what  M.  Fertiault  (who  has  written  a  century  of 
sonnets  on  bibliomania)  calls  the  hospital  for  books. 

"  Le  dos  humide,  je  I'eponge  ; 
Ou  manque  un  coin,  vite  une  allonge, 
Pour  tous  j'ai  maison  de  sante." 

M.  Didot,  of  course,  did  not  practise  this  amateur 
surgery  himself,  but  had  the  arms  and  devices  of 
Francis  I.  restored  by  one  of  those  famous  binders 
who  only  work  for  dukes,  milHonnaires,  and  Roth- 
schilds. 

During  the  religious  wars  and  the  troubles  of  the 


y8  Books  and  Bookmen 

Fronde,  it  is  probable  that  few  people  gave  much 
time  to  the  collection  of  books.  The  illustrious  ex- 
ceptions are  Richelieu  and  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who 
possessed  a  **  snuffy  Davy "  of  his  own,  an  inde- 
fatigable prowler  among  book-stalls  and  dingy  pur- 
lieus, in  Gabriel  Naude.  In  1664  Naude,  who  was 
a  learned  and  ingenious  writer,  the  apologist  for 
"  great  men  accused  of  magic,"  published  the  sec- 
ond edition  of  his  'Avis  pour  dresser  une  Biblio- 
theque,'  and  proved  himself  to  be  a  true  lover  of  the 
chase,  a  mighty  hunter  (of  books)  before  the  Lord. 
Naude's  advice  to  the  collector  is  rather  amusing. 
He  pretends  not  to  care  much  for  bindings,  and 
quotes  Seneca's  rebuke  of  the  Roman  bibliomaniacs, 
Quos  voluminum  suorum  f routes  maxime  placent  titu- 
lique,  —  who  chiefly  care  for  the  backs  and  letter- 
ing of  their  volumes.  The  fact  is  that  Naude  had 
the  wealth  of  Mazarin  at  his  back,  and  we  know 
very  well,  from  the  remains  of  the  Cardinal's  library 
which  exist,  that  he  liked  as  well  as  any  man  to 
see  his  cardinal's  hat  glittering  on  red  or  olive  mo- 
rocco in  the  midst  of  the  beautiful  tooling  of  the 
early  seventeenth  century.  When  once  he  got  a 
book,  he  would  not  spare  to  give  it  a  worthy  jacket. 
Naude's  ideas  about  buying  were  peculiar.  Perhaps 
he  sailed  rather  nearer  the  wind  than  even  Monk- 
barns  would  have  cared  to  do.  His  favorite  plan 
was  to  buy  up  whole  libraries  in  the  gross,  "  specu- 
lative lots  "  as  the  dealers  call  them.  In  the  second 
place,  he  advised  the  book-lover  to  haunt  the  re- 
treats of  Libraires  fripiers,  et  les  vieiix  fonds  et  mag- 
asins.  Here  he  truly  observes  that  you  may  find 
rare  books,  brochis,  —  that  is,  unbound  and  uncut, 
— just  as  Mr.  Symonds  bought  two  uncut  copies  of 


Bibliomania  in  France  79 

'  Laon  and  Cythna '  in  a  Bristol  stall  for  a  crown. 
"  You  may  get  things  for  four  or  five  crowns  that 
would  cost  you  forty  or  fifty  elsewhere,"  says  Naude. 
Thus  a  few  years  ago  M,  Paul  Lacroix  bought  for 
two  francs,  in  a  Paris  shop,  the  very  copy  of  '  Tar- 
tuffe '  which  had  belonged  to  Louis  XIV.  The  ex- 
ample may  now  be  worth  perhaps  ;;^200.  But  we  are 
digressing  into  the  pleasures  of  the  modern  sports- 
man. 

It  was  not  only  in  second-hand  bookshops  that 
Naude  hunted,  but  among  the  dealers  in  waste  pa- 
per. "  Thus  did  Poggio  find  Quintilian  on  the  coun- 
ter of  a  wood-merchant,  and  Masson  picked  up 
'Agobardus'  at  the  shop  of  a  binder,  who  was  go- 
ing to  use  the  MS.  to  patch  his  books  withal." 
Rossi,  who  may  have  seen  Naude  at  work,  tells  us 
how  he  would  enter  a  shop  with  a  yard-measure  in 
his  hand,  buying  books,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  by  the 
ell.  "  The  stalls  where  he  had  passed  were  like  the 
towns  through  which  Attila  or  the  Tartars  had 
swept,  with  ruin  in  their  train,  —  tit  non  hominis 
tmitis  sediilitas,  sed  calamitas  quaedam  per  omnes 
bibliopolarum  tabernas  pervasisse  videatur  !  "  Naude 
had  sorrows  of  his  own.  In  1652  the  Parliament 
decreed  the  confiscation  of  the  splendid  library  of 
Mazarin,  which  was  perhaps  the  first  free  library  in 
Europe,  —  the  first  that  was  open  to  all  who  were 
worthy  of  right  of  entrance.  There  is  a  painful 
description  of  the  sale,  from  which  the  book-lover 
will  avert  his  eyes.  On  Mazarin's  return  to  power 
he  managed  to  collect  again  and  enrich  his  stores, 
which  form  the  germ  of  the  existing  Bibliothbque 
Mazarine. 

Naud6  is  thought  not  to  have  been  more  scrupu- 


8o  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

lous  than  other  collectors,  but  it  is  not  on  record 
that  he  ever  stole  a  book.  A  contemporary  of  his 
—  a  Pope,  melancholy  to  relate  —  is  accused  of  hav- 
ing "conveyed"  a  book  on  the  Council  of  Trent 
The  witness  for  the  prosecution  is  only  Tallemant 
des  Reaux,  who  had  a  bad  word  for  every  one ;  and 
it  is  fair  to  say  that  when  he  annexed  the  volume 
Innocent  X.  was  still  plain  Monseigneur  PamphiUo 
in  the  suite  of  the  Legate.  The  victim  was  Du 
Monstier,  the  painter,  who  himself  frankly  avowed 
that  he  had  stolen  a  book  from  a  stall  on  the  Pont 
Neuf.  He  was  the  more  likely  to  be  suspicious  of 
others.  Innocent  X.  (then  Pamphilio)  once  attended 
the  Legate  Cardinal  Barberini  on  a  visit  to  the 
studio  of  Du  Monstier.  On  the  table  lay  *  L'His- 
toire  du  Concile  de  Trente,'  —  "  the  London  edi- 
tion, the  good  one."  "  What  a  shame  that  such  a 
man  should  have  such  a  book  !  "  said  Pamphilio  to 
himself,  and  proceeded  to  make  his  frontier  more 
scientific  by  slipping  the  history  under  his  soutane. 
Du  Monstier  observed  him,  seized  the  spoil,  and 
drove  Monseigneur  Pamphilio  out  of  the  studio. 
According  to  Amelot  de  la  Houssare,  the  priest, 
when  he  became  pope,  bore  resentment,  and  during 
the  ten  years  of  his  pontificate  was  the  inveterate 
enemy  of  France.  He  did  not,  however,  as  some 
expected  he  would,  excommunicate  Du  Monstier. 

Among  princes  and  popes  it  is  pleasant  to  meet 
one  man  of  letters,  and  he  the  greatest  of  the  great 
age,  who  was  a  bibliophile.  The  enemies  and  rivals 
of  Moli^re  —  De  Vise,  De  Villiers,  and  the  rest  — 
are  always  reproaching  him  with  his  love  of  bou- 
quins.  There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  among 
philologists  about  the  derivation  of  bouquiuy  but  all 


Bibliomania  in  France  8i 

book-hunters  know  the  meaning  of  the  word.  The 
bouquin  is  the  "  small,  rare  volume,  dark  with  tar- 
nished gold,"  which  lies  among  the  wares  of  the 
stall-keeper,  patient  in  rain  and  dust,  till  the  hunter 
comes  who  can  appreciate  the  quarry.  We  like  to 
think  of  Moliere  lounging  through  the  narrow  streets 
in  the  evening,  returning,  perhaps,  from  some  no- 
ble house  where  he  has  been  reading  the  proscribed 
'  Tartuffe,'  or  giving  an  imitation  of  the  rival  actors 
at  the  Hotel  Bourgogne.  Absent  as  the  contempla- 
teur  is,  a  dingy  book-stall  wakens  him  from  his  rev- 
erie. His  lace  ruffles  are  soiled  in  a  moment,  with 
the  learned  dust  of  ancient  volumes.  Perhaps  he 
picks  up  the  only  work  out  of  all  his  library  that  is 
known  to  exist,  —  un  ravissant  petit  Elzevir,  '  De 
Imperio  Magni  Mogolis'  (Lugd.  Bat.  165 1).  On  the 
title-page  of  this  tiny  volume,  one  of  the  minute 
sferies  of  '  Republics '  which  the  Elzevirs  published, 
the  poet  has  written  his  rare  signature,  "  J.  B.  P. 
Moliere,"  with  the  price  the  book  cost  him,  "  i  livre, 
10  sols."  "II  n'est  pas  de  bouquin  qui  s'echappe 
de  ses  mains,"  says  the  author  of  '  La  Guerre  Co- 
mique,'  the  last  of  the  pamphlets  which  flew  about 
during  the  great  literary  quarrel  about  "  L'licole 
des  Femmes."  Thanks  to  M.  Soulie  the  catalogue 
of  Moliere's  library  has  been  found,  though  the 
books  themselves  have  passed  out  of  view.  There 
are  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  volumes  in  the 
inventory,  but  Moliere's  widow  may  have  omitted 
as  valueless  (it  is  the  foible  of  her  sex)  many  rusty 
bouqiiins,  now  worth  far  more  than  their  weight 
in  gold.  Moliere  owned  no  fewer  than  two  hundred 
and  forty  volumes  of  French  and  Italian  comedies. 
From   these  he  took  what  suited  him  wherever  he 


S2  Books  and  Bookmen 

found  it.  He  had  plenty  of  classics,  histories,  philo- 
sophic treatises,  the  essays  of  Montaigne,  a  Plu- 
tarch, and  a  Bible. 

We  know  nothing,  to  the  regret  of  bibliophiles, 
of  Moliere's  taste  in  bindings.  Did  he  have  a  comic 
mask  stamped  on  the  leather  (that  device  was  chased 
on  his  plate),  or  did  he  display  his  cognizance  and 
arms,  the  two  apes  that  support  a  shield  charged  with 
three  mirrors  of  Truth  .-•  It  is  certain  —  La  Bruyere 
tells  us  as  much  —  that  the  sillier  sort  of  book-lover 
in  the  seventeenth  century  was  much  the  same  sort 
of  person  as  his  successor  in  our  own  time.  "A  man 
tells  me  he  has  a  library,"  says  La  Bruyere  {De  la 
Mode) ;  "  I  ask  permission  to  see  it.  I  go  to  visit 
my  friend,  and  he  receives  me  in  a  house  where, 
even  on  the  stairs,  the  smell  of  the  black  morocco 
with  which  his  books  are  covered  is  so  strong  that 
I  nearly  faint.  He  does  his  best  to  revive  me ; 
shouts  in  my  ear  that  the  volumes  *  have  gilt  edges,' 
that  they  are  'elegantly  tooled,'  that  they  are  'of 
the  good  edition,'  .  .  .  and  informs  me  that  '  he 
never  reads,'  that  '  he  never  sets  foot  in  this  part 
of  his  house,'  that  he  'will  come  to  oblige  me  ! '  I 
thank  him  for  all  his  kindness,  and  have  no  more 
desire  than  himself  to  see  the  tanner's  shop  that  he 
calls  his  library." 

Colbert,  the  great  minister  of  Louis  XIV.,  was  a 
bibliophile  at  whom  perhaps  La  Bruyere  would  have 
sneered.  He  was  a  collector  who  did  not  read,  but 
who  amassed  beautiful  books,  and  looked  forward, 
as  business  men  do,  to  the  day  when  he  would  have 
time  to  study  them.  After  Grolier,  De  Thou,  and 
Mazarin,  Colbert  possessed  probably  the  richest  pri- 
vate library  in  Europe.    The  ambassadors  of  France 


Bibliomania  in  France  83 

were  charged  to  procure  him  rare  books  and  manu- 
scripts, and  it  is  said  that  in  a  commercial  treaty 
with  the  Porte  he  inserted  a  clause  demanding  a 
certain  quantity  of  Levant  morocco  for  the  use  of 
the  royal  bookbinders,  England,  in  those  days,  had 
no  literature  with  which  France  deigned  to  be  ac- 
quainted. Even  into  England,  however,  valuable 
books  had  been  imported  ;  and  we  find  Colbert 
pressing  the  French  ambassador  at  St.  James's  to 
bid  for  him  at  a  certain  sale  of  rare  heretical  writ- 
ings. People  who  wanted  to  gain  his  favor  ap- 
proached him  with  presents  of  books,  and  the  city 
of  Metz  gave  him  two  real  curiosities, —  the  famous 
"  Metz  Bible "  and  the  Missal  of  Charles  the  Bald. 
The  Elzevirs  sent  him  their  best  examples,  and 
though  Colbert  probably  saw  more  of  the  gilt  cov- 
ers of  his  books  than  of  their  contents,  at  least  he 
preserved  and  handed  down  many  valuable  works. 
As  much  may  be  said  for  the  reprobate  Cardinal 
Dubois,  who,  with  all  his  faults,  was  a  collector. 
Bossuet,  on  the  other  hand,  left  little  or  nothing  of 
interest  except  a  copy  of  the  1682  edition  of  Mo- 
liere,  whom  he  detested  and  condemned  to  "  the 
punishment  of  those  who  laugh."  Even  this  book, 
which  has  a  curious  interest,  has  shpped  out  of 
sight,  and  may  have  ceased  to  exist. 

If  Colbert  and  Dubois  preserved  books  from  de- 
struction, there  are  collectors  enough  whom  books 
have  rescued  from  oblivion.  The  diplomacy  of 
D'Hoym  is  forgotten  ;  the  plays  of  Longepierre, 
and  his  quarrels  with  J.  B.  Rousseau  are  known 
only  to  the  literary  historian.  These  great  ama- 
teurs have  secured  an  eternity  of  gilt  edges,  an 
immortality  of  morocco.     Absurd  prices  are  given 


84  Books  and  Bookmen 

for  any  trash  that  belonged  to  them,  and  the  writer 
of  this  notice  has  bought  for  four  shillings  an  El- 
zevir classic,  which,  when  it  bears  the  golden  fleece 
of  Longepierre,  is  worth  about  ;^ioo,  Longepierre, 
D'Hoym,  McCarthy,  and  the  Due  de  la  Valliere, 
with  all  their  treasures,  are  less  interesting  to  us 
than  Graille,  Coche,  and  Loque,  the  neglected  daugh- 
ters of  Louis  XV.  They  found  some  pale  consola- 
tion in  their  little  cabinets  of  books,  in  their  various 
liveries  of  olive,  citron,  and  red  morocco. 

During  the  Revolution,  to  like  well-bound  books 
was  as  much  as  to  proclaim  one  an  aristocrat.  Con- 
dorcet  might  have  escaped  the  scaffold  if  he  had 
only  thrown  away  the  neat  little  Horace  from  the 
royal  press,  which  betrayed  him  for  no  true  Repub- 
lican, but  an  educated  man.  The  great  libraries 
from  the  chateaux  of  the  nobles  were  scattered 
among  all  the  book-stalls.  True  sons  of  freedom 
tore  off  the  bindings,  with  their  gilded  crests  and 
scutcheons.  One  revolutionary  writer  declared,  and 
perhaps  he  was  not  far  wrong,  that  the  art  of  bind- 
ing was  the  worst  enemy  of  reading.  He  always 
began  his  studies  by  breaking  the  backs  of  the  vol- 
umes he  was  about  to  attack.  The  art  of  bookbind- 
ing in  these  sad  years  took  flight  to  England,  and 
was  kept  alive  by  artists  robust  rather  than  refined, 
like  Thompson  and  Roger  Payne. 

When  Napoleon  became  Emperor,  he  strove  in 
vain  to  make  the  troubled  and  feverish  years  of  his 
power  produce  a  literature.  He  himself  was  one  of 
the  most  voracious  readers  of  novels  that  ev^er  lived. 
He  was  always  asking  for  the  newest  of  the  new, 
and  unfortunately  even  the  new  romances  of  his 
period  were  hopelessly  bad.     Barbier,  his  librarian, 


Bibliomania  in  France  8^ 

had  orders  to  send  parcels  of  fresh  fiction  to  his 
majesty  wherever  he  might  happen  to  be,  and  great 
loads  of  novels  followed  Napoleon  to  Germany, 
Spain,  Italy,  Russia.  The  conqueror  was  very  hard 
to  please.  He  read  in  his  travelling  carriage,  and 
after  skimming  a  few  pages  would  throw  a  volume 
that  bored  him  out  of  the  window  into  the  highway. 
He  might  have  been  tracked  by  his  trail  of  romances, 
as  was  Hop-o'-My-Thumb,  in  the  fairy  tale,  by  the 
white  stones  he  dropped  behind  him.  Poor  Bar- 
bier,  who  ministered  to  a  passion  for  novels  that  de- 
manded twenty  volumes  a  day,  was  at  his  wit's  end. 
He  tried  to  foist  on  the  Emperor  the  romances  of 
the  year  before  last ;  but  these  Napoleon  had  gen- 
erally read,  and  he  refused,  with  imperial  scorn,  to 
look  at  them  again.  He  ordered  a  travelling  library 
of  three  thousand  volumes  to  be  made  for  him,  but 
it  was  proved  that  the  task  could  not  be  accom- 
plished in  less  than  six  years.  The  expense,  if  only 
fifty  copies  of  each  example  had  been  printed,  would 
have  amounted  to  more  than  six  million  francs.  A 
Roman  emperor  would  not  have  allowed  these  con- 
siderations to  stand  in  his  way  ;  but  Napoleon,  after 
all,  was  a  modern.  He  contented  himself  with  a 
selection  of  books  conveniently  small  in  shape,  and 
packed  in  sumptuous  cases.  The  classical  writers 
of  France  could  never  content  Napoleon,  and  even 
from  Moscow,  in  1812,  he  wrote  to  Barbier  clamor- 
ous for  new  books,  and  good  ones.  Long  before 
they  could  have  reached  Moscow,  Napoleon  was  fly- 
ing homeward  before  Kotousoff  and  Benningsen. 

Napoleon  was  the  last  of  the  book-lovers  who  gov- 
erned France.  The  Due  d'Aumale,  a  famous  biblio- 
phile, has  never  "  come  to  his  own,"  and  of  M.  Gam- 


S6  Books  and  Bookmen 

betta  it  is  only  known  that  his  devotional  library,  at 
least,  has  found  its  way  into  the  market.  The  writer 
of  this  essay  was  fortunate  enough  to  purchase  *  La 
Journ^e  Chretienne,'  with  L^on  Gambetta  on  the 
fly-leaf,  at  a  London  book-stall.  We  have  reached 
the  era  of  private  book  fanciers  :  of  Nodier,  who 
had  three  libraries  in  his  time,  but  never  a  Virgil ; 
and  of  Pixerecourt,  the  dramatist,  who  founded  the 
Society  des  Bibliophiles  Frangais.  The  Romantic 
movement  in  French  literature  brought  in  some 
new  fashions  in  book-hunting.  The  original  editions 
of  Ronsard,  Des  Fortes,  Belleau,  and  Du  Bellay  be- 
came invaluable  ;  while  the  writings  of  Gautier, 
Petrus  Borel,  and  others  excited  the  passion  of  col- 
lectors. Pixerecourt  was  a  believer  in  the  works  of 
the  Elzevirs.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  outbid 
by  a  friend  at  an  auction,  he  cried  passionately,  "  I 
shall  have  that  book  at  your  sale  !  "  and,  the  other 
poor  bibliophile  soon  falling  into  a  decline  and  dying, 
Pixerecourt  got  the  volume  which  he  so  much  de- 
sired. The  superstitious  might  have  been  excused 
for  crediting  him  with  the  gift  of  jettatura,  —  of  the 
evil  eye.  On  Pixerecourt  himself  the  evil  eye  fell 
at  last ;  his  theatre,  the  Gaiete,  was  burned  down  in 
1835,  and  his  creditors  intended  to  impound  his  be- 
loved books.  The  bibliophile  hastily  packed  them 
in  boxes,  and  conveyed  them  in  two  cabs  and  under 
cover  of  night  to  the  house  of  M.  Paul  Lacroix. 
There  they  languished  in  exile  till  the  affairs  of  the 
manager  were  settled. 

Pixerecourt  and  Nodier,  the  most  reckless  of  men, 
were  the  leaders  of  the  older  school  of  bibliomani- 
acs. The  former  was  not  a  rich  man ;  the  second 
was  poor,  but  he  never  hesitated  in  face  of  a  price 


Bibliomania  in  France  8y 

that  he  could  not  afford.  He  would  literally  ruin 
himself  in  the  accumulation  of  a  library,  and  then 
would  recover  his  fortunes  by  selling  his  books. 
Nodier  passed  through  life  without  a  Virgil,  because 
he  never  succeeded  in  finding  the  ideal  Virgil  of  his 
dreams,  —  a  clean,  uncut  copy  of  the  old  Elzevir 
edition,  with  the  misprint  and  the  two  pages  in  red 
letters.  Perhaps  this  failure  was  a  judgment  on  him 
for  the  trick  by  which  he  beguiled  a  certain  collector 
of  Bibles.  He  invented  an  edition,  and  put  the  col- 
lector on  the  scent,  which  he  followed  vainly,  till  he 
died  of  the  sickness  of  hope  deferred. 

One  has  more  sympathy  with  the  eccentricities  of 
Nodier  than  with  the  mere  extravagance  of  the  new 
haute  ^cole  of  bibliomaniacs,  the  school  of  million- 
naires,  royal  dukes,  and  Rothschilds.  These  ama- 
teurs are  reckless  of  prices,  and  by  their  competition 
have  made  it  almost  impossible  for  a  poor  man  to 
buy  a  precious  book.  The  dukes,  the  Americans, 
the  public  libraries,  snap  them  all  up  in  the  auctions. 
A  glance  at  M.  Gustave  Brunet's  little  volume,  *  La 
Bibliomanie  en  1878,'  will  prove  the  excesses  which 
these  people  commit.  The  funeral  oration  of  Bos- 
suet  over  Henriette  Marie  of  France  (1669),  and 
Henriette  Anne  of  England  (1670),  quarto,  in  the 
original  binding,  are  sold  for  ;^20O.  It  is  true  that 
this  copy  had  possibly  belonged  to  Bossuet  himself, 
and  certainly  to  his  nephew.  There  is  an  example 
of  the  1682  edition  of  MoH^re,  —  of  Moli^re  whom 
Bossuet  detested,  —  which  may  also  have  belonged 
to  the  eagle  of  Meaux.  The  manuscript  notes  of 
the  divine  on  the  work  of  the  poor  player  must  be 
edifying,  and  in  the  interests  of  science  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  this  book  may  soon  come  into  the  mar- 


88  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

ket.  While  pamphlets  of  Bossuet  are  sold  so  dear, 
the  first  edition  of  Homer  —  the  beautiful  edition 
of  1488,  which  the  three  young  Florentine  gentle- 
men published  —  may  be  had  for  ;^ioo.  Yet  even 
that  seems  expensive,  when  we  remember  that  the 
copy  in  the  library  of  George  III.  cost  only  seven 
shillings.  This  exquisite  Homer,  sacred  to  the  mem- 
ory of  learned  friendships,  the  chief  offering  of  early 
printing  at  the  altar  of  ancient  poetry,  is  really  one 
of  the  most  interesting  books  in  the  world.  Yet 
this  Homer  is  less  valued  than  the  tiny  octavo  which 
contains  the  ballades  and  huitains  of  the  scamp 
Frangois  Villon  (1533).  'The  History  of  the  Holy 
Grail'  {V Hystoire  du  Sainct  Grdaal:  Paris,  1523), 
in  a  binding  stamped  with  the  four  crowns  of  Louis 
XIV.,  is  valued  at  about  ;!^500.  A  chivalric  ro- 
mance of  the  old  days,  which  was  treasured  even  in 
the  time  of  the  grand  monarque,  when  old  French 
literature  was  so  much  despised,  is  certainly  a  curi- 
osity. The  *  Rabelais '  of  Madame  de  Pompadour 
seems  comparatively  cheap  at  £,60.  There  is  some- 
thing piquant  in  the  idea  of  inheriting  from  that 
famous  beauty  the  work  of  the  colossal  genius  of 
Rabelais.* 

The  natural  sympathy  of  collectors  "to  middle 
fortune  born  "  is  not  with  the  rich  men  whose  sport 
in  book-hunting  resembles  the  battue.  We  side 
with  the  poor  hunters  of  the  wild  game,  who  hang 
over  the  four-penny  stalls  on  the  quais,  and  dive 
into  the  dusty  boxes  after  literary  pearls.  These 
devoted  men  rise  betimes,  and  hurry  to  the  stalls 
before   the   common   tide   of   passengers    goes   by. 

*  For  a  specimen  of  Madame  Pompadour's  binding  see  opposite 
page. 


jJMJUattia';w:«P'^ww^»i'«i»'-'»'»i«ii»i«ii«..w>r 


BINDING    WITH    THE    ARMS    OF    MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR. 


Bibliomania  in  France  p/ 

Early  morning  is  the  best  moment  in  this,  as  in 
other  sports.  At  half  past  seven,  in  summer,  the 
bouqui?iiste,  the  dealer  in  cheap  volumes  at  second- 
hand, arrays  the  books  which  he  purchased  over 
night,  the  stray  possessions  of  ruined  families,  the 
outcasts  of  libraries.  The  old-fashioned  bookseller 
knevf  little  of  the  value  of  his  wares  ;  it  was  his 
object  to  turn  a  small  certain  profit  on  his  expen- 
diture. Thus  a  charming  old  fellow  in  a  London 
street  (long  may  he  live  !)  actually  sold  a  play  of 
Moliere's,  a  presentation  copy  with  the  poet's  auto- 
graph, for  half  a  crown  !  The  purchaser  in  this  case 
was  generous,  and  sent  the  stall-keeper  an  adequate 
cheque.  It  is  generally  held,  however,  that  book- 
sellers are  fair  game.  The  amateurs  surround  their 
boxes  on  summer  mornings,  "  as  thick  as  bees  on 
the  flowers  in  spring,"  and  watch  each  other  as  you 
may  have  seen  boys  do,  when  they  are  angling  three 
or  four  in  the  same  river-pool.  Sometimes  the  best 
fish  escape  them,  and  M.  de  Fontaine  de  Resbecq 
(author  of  a  charming  little  book,  'Voyage  Litte- 
raire  sur  les  Ouais  de  Paris ')  landed  a  first  edition 
of  Rochefoucauld  after  two  keen  fishers  had  just 
gone  over  the  same  water.  It  is  reckoned  that  an 
energetic,  business-like  old  bookseller  will  turn  over 
150,000  volumes  in  a  year.  In  this  vast  number 
there  must  be  pickings  for  the  humble  collector  who 
cannot  afford  to  encounter  the  children  of  Israel  at 
Christie's,  or  at  the  Hotel  Drouot. 

Let  the  enthusiast,  in  conclusion,  throw  a  hand- 
ful of  lilies  on  the  grave  of  the  martyr  of  the  love 
of  books,  —  the  poet  Albert  Glatigny.  Poor  Gla- 
tigny  was  the  son  of  a  garde  champetre  ;  his  educa- 
tion was  accidental,  and  his  poetic  taste  and  skill  ex- 


92 


Books  and  Bookmen 


traordinarily  fine  and  delicate.  In  his  life  of  literal 
starvation  (he  had  often  to  sleep  in  omnibuses  and 
railway  stations),  he  frequently  spent  the  price  of  a 
dinner  on  a  new  book.  He  lived  to  read  and  to  dream, 
and  if  he  bought  books  he  had  not  the  wherewithal 
to  live.  Still,  he  bought  them,  —  and  he  died  !  His 
own  poems  were  beautifully  printed  by  Lemerre, 
and  it  may  be  a  joy  to  him  {si  mentem  mortalia  tan- 
gunt)  that  they  are  now  so  highly  valued  that  the 
price  of  a  copy  would  have  kept  the  author  alive 
and  happy  for  a  month. 


'BoofibintimsjsJ 


'Boofebtntimg^ 


AKING  one  consideration  with 
another,  the  bookseller's  life,  in 
summer,  can  scarcely  be  a  happy- 
one.  In  summer  there  are  so 
many  agreeable  things  to  do  that 
one  is  little  tempted  to  haunt 
streets  and  lanes,  and  linger  over 
stalls,  and  imbrue  one's  self,  so  to 
speak,  with  learned  dust.  Summer  is  the  season  for 
finding  "books  in  the  running  brooks;"  and  even 
if  a  man  be  pent  up  in  town,  there  are  gardens,  and 
lawn-tennis  courts,  and  Lord's,  and  the  Oval  which 
appeal  to  him.  He  can  find  sport  enough  without 
the  sport  of  book-hunting,  which  is  all  very  well  in 
winter,  when  the  "ways  are  mire,"  and  hfe  has 
comparatively  few  recreations.  In  spite  of  these 
results  of  July  weather,  the  Beckford  sale  went  on 
in  1883  without  any  sign  of  slackness,  or  of  a  droop- 
ing and  depressed  market.  Probably  the  mighty 
book-hunters  are  not  so  easily  diverted  for  the  pur- 
suit of  the  big  game  as  humbler  amateurs  who 
chevy  the  small  and  infrequent  bargain  in  winter. 
In  the  same  summer  Mr.  Quaritch  published  a 
*  Catalogue  of  Books  in  Historical  and  Remarkable 


96  Books  and  Bookmen 

Bindings,'  which  is  equipped  with  an  historical  in- 
troduction, and  enriched,  if  we  may  say  so,  with  re- 
markable remarks.  With  the  aid  of  this  and  of  the 
Beckford  catalogue  (No.  3),  we  propose  to  discourse 
for  a  while  of  books  and  of  bookbindings. 

"  Books  cannot  live  long  without  bindings,"  says 
the  author  of  Mr.  Quaritch's  catalogue.  The  life  of 
unbound  German  books  in  particular  is  a  short  and 
(it  is  needless  to  add)  by  no  means  a  merry  one. 
A  man  has  a  natural  and  proper  objection  to  spend- 
ing money  on  the  binding  of  his  German  books; 
they  are  so  ugly,  so  didactic,  so  badly  printed  on 
such  execrable  paper.  But  he  who  does  not  at  least 
half  bind  his  German  volumes  soon  finds  his  study 
resemble  the  cave  of  the  sibyl  on  a  windy  day,  and 
the  pages 

"  Turbata  volant  rapidis  ludibria  ventis." 

"  It  is  therefore  no  unwise  or  contemptible  mania," 
says  the  same  writer  "(as  mere  scholars  and  journal- 
istic journeymen  have  combined  to  assert),  which 
impels  the  lover  of  good  books  to  deck  his  darlings 
in  appropriate  costume,  —  a  costume  so  appropriate 
and  so  good  in  itself  that  even  Ignorance  will  be 
tempted  to  save  the  author  for  the  sake  of  his 
robes." 

Very  true,  let  the  mere  scholar  and  the  contemp- 
tible journaHst  make  what  he  can  of  it.  Mr.  Quar- 
itch's catalogue  goes  on  to  deplore  the  lack  of  a 
truly  worthy  history  of  bookbinding.  MM.  Marius- 
Michel  have  written,  not  unwisely,  on  this  matter ; 
but  they  are  (in  the  modern  division  of  labor)  not 
binders  so  much  as  gilders.  We  have  by  us  a  vol- 
ume bound  in  a  mosaic  of  red,  white,  and  brown 
moroccos,  doubU,  with  green  morocco,  and  bearing 


Bookbindings  97 

the  names  "  Hardy-Mennil "  and  "  Marius-Michel 
Doreurs,"  whence  we  infer  that  Hardy  -  Mennil 
bound  the  book,  and  Marius-Michel  only  did  the  gild- 
ing. Therefore,  Marius-Michel  think  chiefly  not  of 
the  leather,  but  of  the  gilding  which  decorates  the 
leather,  and  thus  the  Marius  -  Michel  '  History  of 
Binding'  is  but  a  one-sided  work.  Mr.  Quaritch 
thinks  we  have  fallen  on  an  age  of  eclecticism  in 
binding,  and  his  catalogue  has  even  a  good  word  for 
Bozerian,  who  bound  about  seventy  years  ago,  and 
may  have  been  original,  but  is  certainly  not  popular 
among  amateurs. 

We  need  not  vex  ourselves  with  criticism  of  Car- 
olingian  bookbinding,  which  was  of  a  sumptuous 
and  monumental  character.  "  I  don't  call  that  jew- 
eller's work ;  I  call  it  engineering,"  said  an  Italian 
jeweller,  as  he  contemplated  a  massive  example  of 
British  art  in  gold.  And  the  bookbinding  of  "  Karl 
the  Great "  and  his  period  partook  almost  of  the 
nature  of  architecture,  and  was  ponderous  with  wood 
and  metal  and  encrusted  pebbles  about  the  size  of 
apples.  Modern  bookbinding  came  in  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  when  wood  gave  way  to  paste- 
board, and  morocco  succeeded  to  sheep-skin,  deer- 
skin, and  the  skin  of  swine.  Grolier,  in  his  diplo- 
matic capacity,  lived  from  15 10  to  1530  in  Italy,  and 
brought  back  to  France  his  magnificent  library,  and 
the  taste  for  morocco  bindings  with  tooled  geomet- 
rical patterns  and  mottoes  and  devices.  The  royal 
family  of  France  had  everything  handsome  about 
them  in  the  way  of  bookbinding,  and  "  the  golden 
time  "  of  this  ornamental  art  was  between  1525  and 
1575- 

On    looking    at   the   catalogue   of   the    Beckford 


g8  Books  and  Bookmen 

Library,  we  shall  see  how  many  of  the  dearest  and 
most  coveted  volumes  were  bound  in  this  period. 
Grolieresque  work  came  with  fashion  in  England ; 
the  community  of  Little  Gidding  (see  '  John  Ingle- 
sant ')  dabbled  in  embroidered  silk  bindings,  and 
then  "  EngHsh  binding  subsided  for  a  time  into  dull 
and  ugly  plainness."  How  truly,  then,  does  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold  say  that  the  English  spirit  entered 
the  prison  house  of  Puritanism,  and  had  the  key 
turned  on  it  for  two  hundred  years  !  The  English 
spirit  came  out  in  our  day,  and  straightway  wallowed 
in  music-halls  and  society  journals,  so  that  English 
bookbinding  has  never  really,  to  our  mind,  been 
worth  much  since  the  direct  traditions  of  Grolier's 
taste  expired.  In  France  "  plainness  came  in  with 
the  Bourbons,"  and  the  stout  bindings  done  for  De 
Thou,  and  decorated  with  his  armorial  bearings,  are 
good  examples  of  the  period.  Le  Gascon  (1620), 
introduced  the  fashion  of  "  minute  gold  dots  elabo- 
rated into  lines  and  crosses  of  singular  brilliancy 
and  elegance."  It  were  too  long  to  tell  of  the 
changes  and  fashions  associated  with  the  names  of 
Boyer,  Dusseuil,  the  members  of  the  house  of  De- 
rome,  and  the  "  Padeloupian  license  "  of  Padeloup. 
These  binders  are  all  in  very  high  estimation,  es- 
pecially when  their  books  are  doubles,  or  lined  with 
morocco.  Not  less  prized  is  the  modern  work  of 
Bauzonnet 

The  third  portion  of  the  Beckford  Library  was 
not  less  beautiful  than  its  predecessors,  and  not  less 
rich  in  curiosities  and  in  trash.  Unfortunately,  we 
are  acquainted  only  with  the  prices  of  the  most 
expensive  books.  We  cannot  tell  for  how  much 
the  curious  bought  '  The  Naiad :  a  Tale,  with  other 


Bookbindings  gg 

Poems,*  on  which  Beckford  wrote,  "  A  poem  of  inef- 
fable silliness."  A  quaint  book,  which  sold  for 
about  jQid),  is  "Nicole,  'Les  Imaginaires  et  les  Vis- 
ionnaires,'  "  a  very  fine  copy,  in  blue  morocco,  bound 
by  Dusseuil  (Liege,  1667).  The  book  is  in  the  Beck- 
ford  catalogue  correctly  assigned  to  the  press  of  the 
Elzevirs.  The  large  price  must  be  exclusively  due 
to  the  binding,  as  the  interest  of  the  matter,  an  at- 
tack on  Desmarets  de  St.  Porlin,  has  absolutely  evap- 
orated. 

Probably  few  students  find  it  often  necessary  to 
consult  Niphus,  'De  Pulchro,'  which  was  bought  for 
jQjo.  The  book  is  out  of  Grolier's  library,  and  Gro- 
liers  are  limited  in  number ;  perhaps  four  hundred 
are  known  to  exist.  The  brown  morocco  cover 
bears  one  of  his  devices,  "Portio  Mea,  Domine,  sit 
in  terra  viventium."  Possibly  Grolier  argued  that 
there  would  be  no  book-collecting  in  a  future  state, 
and  so  prayed  for  long  residence  "in  the  land  of  the 
living."  Mr.  Quaritch  values  at  jQ6oQ)  his  own  Gro- 
lier's copy  of  the  first  dated  book  printed  in  Italy, 
Lactantius'  *  Adversus  Gentes  '  (1465).  This  is 
bound  in  orange  morocco,  "with  grand  geometrical 
designs  of  interlacements  tooled  in  broad  compart- 
ments of  silver,  with  elegant  subsidiary  ornaments 
of  mosaic  character,  in  green,  red,  and  gold."  Un- 
luckily, an  Italian  marquis  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury has  had  his  own  coronet  and  monogram  added, 
but  "no  worm  or  marquis,"  cries  the  catalogue,  "has 
invaded  the  beauty  of  the  rich  decorations  "  of  the 
sides.  "Worm  or  marquis"  is  good.  Mr.  Quaritch 
thinks  it  probable  that  Grolier  adopted  various  de- 
vices at  different  periods  and  in  different  moods. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  he  was  think- 


loo  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

ing  of  when   he   selected  "Quisque  suos  patimur 
Manes,"  and  "  Tanquam  ventus." 

A  lady  amateur  of  high  (book-collecting)  reputa- 
tion, the  Comtesse  de  Verrue,  is  represented  in  the 
Beckford  sale  by  one  of  three  copies  of  'L'Histoire 
de  Melusine,'  of  Melusine,  the  troy-formed  fairy,  and 
ancestress  of  the  house  of  Lusignan.  The  Comtesse 
de  Verrue,  one  of  the  few  women  who  have  really 
understood  book-collecting,  was  born  January  i8, 
1670,  and  died  November  18,  1736,  She  was  the 
daughter  of  Charles  de  Luynes  and  of  his  second 
wife,  Anne  de  Rohan.  When  only  thirteen  she 
married  the  Comte  de  Verrue,  who  somewhat  injudi- 
ciously presented  her,  a  Jieur  de  qiiinze  ans,  as  Ron- 
sard  says,  at  the  court  of  Victor  Amadeus  of  Savoy. 
It  is  thought  that  the  countess  was  less  cruel  than 
the  Jleur  Angevine  of  Ronsard.  For  some  reason  the 
young  matron  fled  from  the  court  of  Turin  and  re- 
turned to  Paris,  where  she  built  a  magnificent  hotel, 
and  received  the  most  distinguished  company.  Ac- 
cording to  her  biographer,  the  countess  loved  sci- 
ence and  art  jusqu'au  d^ire,  and  she  collected  the 
furniture  of  the  period,  without  neglecting  the  blue 
china  of  the  glowing  Orient.  In  ebony  bookcases 
she  possessed  about  eighteen  thousand  volumes, 
bound  by  the  greatest  artists  of  the  day.  "  Without 
care  for  the  present,  without  fear  of  the  future,  do- 
ing good,  pursuing  the  beautiful,  protecting  the  arts, 
with  a  tender  heart  and  open  hand,  the  countess 
passed  through  life,  calm,  happy,  beloved,  and  ad- 
mired." She  left  an  epitaph  on  herself,  thus  rudely 
translated  :  — 

"  Here  lies,  in  sleep  secure, 
A  dame  inclined  to  mirth, 


Bookbindings  lOi 

Who,  by  way  of  making  sure, 
Chose  her  paradise  on  earth  1 " 

It  is  singular  that  the  great  lady  book-collectors 
have  usually  been  dames  averse  to  melancholy,  such 
as  Madame  de  Pompadour,  Madame  Du  Barry,  and 
the  Comtesse  de  Verrue.  The  library  of  Marie  An- 
toinette herself  was  of  the  lightest  and  least  heroic 
character,  and  a  French  man  of  letters  gave  enor- 
mous offence,  during  the  Empire,  when  he  indis- 
creetly published  the  catalogue  of  the  collection  at 
Trianon. 

The  worst  of  great  sales  like  the  Beckford  affair 
is  that  books  of  no  particular  value,  but  of  a  curious 
interest,  appealing  only  to  few,  are  apt  to  slip  away 
out  of  sight  and  get  into  the  hands  of  persons  who 
make  no  literary  use  of  their  contents.  In  the  Sun- 
derland sale  there  was  a  dumpy  little  duodecimo,  in 
Latin,  on  human  sacrifices.  If  one  could  only  have 
secured  this  rare  volume  on  a  singular  subject,  im- 
portant to  the  student  of  the  history  of  religion,  a 
great  many  scrambling  researches  would  have  been 
spared.  Here  were  all  the  facts  and  references  ready 
collected,  and  nothing  was  wanting  but  theory  and 
the  higher  criticism,  which  any  fellow  can  supply. 
But  the  book  disappeared,  and  probably,  being  cheap, 
has  filtered  out  of  the  way  into  some  stall  where  one 
will  never  see  it  more.  In  the  Beckford  sale,  first 
day,  was  Nynauld's  *  De  la  Lycanthropie,  Transfor- 
mation et  Extase  des  Sorciers  '  (Paris,  1615).  What 
a  treat  would  this  volume  be  for  the  folk-loriste,  as 
the  French  call  the  children  of  primeval  Mother 
Goose  !  Lycanthropy,  or  the  art  by  which  men  be- 
come were-wolves,  is  a  truly  charming  topic.  The 
Romans  were  expert  in  this  art,  as  we  know  from 


102  Books  and  Bookmen 

Petronius.  The  Book  of  Glendalock  tells  us  that 
"  the  descendants  of  the  wolf  are  in  Ossory,"  and 
that  the  wolf-tribe  can  transform  themselves  into 
actual  wolves.  The  Hirpini,  "  Wolves,"  an  old  Sa- 
bine tribe,  used  to  imitate  their  favorite  animal  in 
"wolf-dances."  "A  snout  of  a  wolf  long  dried  is  a 
counter-charm  against  all  witchcraft  and  sorcery," 
says  Pliny,  "  which  is  the  reason  that  they  usually 
set  it  upon  the  gates  of  country  farms."  But,  as  a 
rule,  were-wolves  were  always  malignant.  Olaus 
Magnus  mentions  one  good  fellow  who,  when  his 
company  were  starving,  changed  himself  into  a  wolf 
and  slew  a  sheep  for  his  comrades.  But  the  more 
common  view  of  this  accomplishment  of  skin-shift- 
ing was  entertained  (saith  Olaus)  by  a  certain  Duke 
of  Prussia.  This  duke  did  not  believe  in  were- 
wolves, but,  by  way  of  psychical  research,  he  caught 
a  man  who  had  a  wolfish  reputation,  and  bade  him 
turn  into  a  wolf  without  more  ado,  which  when  the 
poor  caitiff  did,  as  one  anxious  to  oblige,  our  duke 
straightway  had  him  burned  alive.  "  Talia  enim  fia- 
gitia  tam  divinse  quam  humanae  leges  severissime 
puniunt."  Probably  Nynauld's  book  throws  much 
light  on  a  superstition  which  is  almost  universal, 
and  so  persistent  that  it  is  firmly  believed  in  by 
M.  D'Assier,  a  modern  positivist,  and  author  of 
'  L' Homme  Posthume.' 

As  we  have  touched  on  superstitions,  in  this  un- 
methodic  causerie,  we  may  as  well  go  on  to  notice  a 
very  rare  book,  number  347  in  the  Beckford  Cata- 
logue. This  is  styled,  "  Oxenhani  {J^ames  of  Sale 
Monachorum,  Devon).  *  True  Relation  of  an  Appa- 
rition of  a  Bird  with  a  white  breast  hovering  over 
the  Death-beds  of  his  Children.'     Calf  extra.    Small 


Bookbindings  lO} 

4to.  1 64 1."  Every  one,  or  at  all  events  every  one 
who  has  read  '  Westward  Ho ! '  has  heard  of  the 
famous  Oxenham  Bird,  the  omen  of  death.  The 
bird  is  usually  called  a  "white  bird;"  in  the  rare 
pamphlet  of  1641  it  is  more  correctly  styled  a  bird 
with  a  white  breast.  Now  birds,  as  messengers  of 
death,  are  very  familiar  to  mythology.  The  "  birds 
of  Yama,"  the  Indian  god  of  the  Dead,  are  men- 
tioned in  Rig- Veda,  x.  165.  But  the  family  of  Ox- 
enham has  long  claimed  possession  of  a  bird-mes- 
senger of  its  own,  a  bird  of  undetermined  species. 
The  history  of  the  legend,  as  far  as  it  can  be  made 
out,  is  very  curious,  and  has  lately  been  investigated 
by  Mr.  R,  W.  Cotton.  The  question  arises,  What 
is  the  earliest  account  of  the  apparition  ?  On  this 
point  we  can  scarcely  agree  with  Mr.  Cotton.  James 
Howell's  •  Epistolae-Ho-Elianae '  were  first  published 
in  1645.  In  the  first  edition  the  letters,  or  the  ma- 
jority of  them,  are  not  dated.  In  later  editions  the 
letters  are  dated,  but  very  carelessly,  and  in  some 
cases  wrongly.  The  following  letter  is  undated  in 
the  first  edition  ;  in  later  editions  it  is  dated  July, 
1632  :  — 

"  To  Mr.  E.  D. 
"Sir,  —  I  thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  the 
Noble  entertainment  you  gave  me  at  Berry,  and  the 
pains  you  took  in  shewing  me  the  Antiquities  of  that 
place.  In  requitall,  I  can  tell  you  of  a  strange  thing 
I  saw  lately  here  and  I  beleeve  'tis  true.  As  I  pass'd 
by  Saint  Dunstans  in  Fleet-street  the  last  Saturday, 
I  stepp'd  into  a  Lapidary  or  Stone-cutters  Shop,  to 
treat  with  the  Master  for  a  Stone  to  be  put  upon 
my  Fathers  Tomb  ;  And  casting  my  eies  up  and 
down,  I  might  spie  a  huge  Marble  with  a  large  in- 


104  Books  and  Bookmen 

scription  upon  't,  which  was  thus,  to  my  best  re- 
membrance : 

"  Here  lies  John  Oxenham  a  goodly  young  man,  in 
whose  Chamber,  as  he  was  strugling  with  the  pangs 
of  death,  a  Bird  with  a  White-brest  was  seen  flutter- 
ing about  his  bed,  and  so  vanish d. 

^^  Here  lies  also  Mary  Oxenham  the  sister  of  the 
said  John,  who  died  the  next  day,  and  the  same  Ap- 
paritio7i  was  seen  in  the  Room. 

"Then  another  sister  is  spoke  of.  Then,  Here 
lies  hard  by  James  Oxenham,  the  son  of  the  said 
John,  who  died  a  child  in  his  cradle  a  little  after, 
and  such  a  Bird  was  seen  fluttering  about  his  head, 
a  little  before  he  expired,  which  vanished  afterwards. 

"  At  the  bottom  of  the  Stone  ther  is, 

"  Here  lies  Elizabeth  Oxenham,  the  Mother  of  the 
said  John,  who  died  l6  yeers  since,  when  such  a  Bird 
with  a  White-brest  was  seen  about  her  bed  before  her 
death. 

"To  all  these  ther  be  divers  Witnesses,  both 
Squires  and  Ladies,  whose  names  are  engraven 
upon  the  Stone :  This  Stone  is  to  be  sent  to  a  Town 
hard  by  Excester,  wher  this  happen'd. 

"  Were  you  here,  I  could  raise  a  choice  discours 
with  you  here-upon.  So  hoping  to  see  you  next 
Term,  to  requite  som  of  your  favours,  I  rest  Your 
true  Friend  to  serve  you,  J.  H." 

Is  1632  the  genuine  date  of  this  letter?  Mr.  Cot- 
ton thinks  not.  But  the  letter,  in  which  Howell 
speaks  of  ordering  his  father's  tombstone,  follows 
shortly  after  an  account  of  his  father's  death-,  which, 
again,  is  fixed,  by  an  allusion  to  a  battle  that  cer- 
tainly was  fought  in  that  year,  as  belonging  to  1632. 
If  we  are  thus  compelled  to  believe  that  the  account 


Bookbindings  lo^ 

of  the  Oxenham  bird  by  Howell  was  set  down  in 
1632,  it  follows  that  Howell's  version  (though  only- 
written  according  to  his  "best  remembrance")  is 
prior  to  the  pamphlet  in  the  Beckford  sale,  the 
pamphlet  of  1641.  That  pamphlet  avers  that  the 
evidence  for  the  apparition  was  "  strictly  examined 
by  the  command  of  a  reverent  father  of  our  Church," 
who  "gave  approbation  for  the  monument,"  described 
by  Howell,  to  be  erected  by  the  "tomb-worker"  in 
whose  shop  Howell  says  he  saw  it.  But  the  extraor- 
dinary thing  is  that,  whereas  Howell  saw  the  tomb- 
stone in  1632,  the  pamphlet  declares  that  James 
Oxenham  (at  whose  death  the  bird  appeared)  died  in 
1635.  Thomazine  also  "died,  to  the  comfort  of  all 
about  her,"  in  1635,  according  to  the  pamphlet.  The 
other  deaths  and  apparitions  are  chiefly  in  the  same 
year.  In  the  parish  register  of  Sale  Monachorum 
there  is  a  portion  of  a  leaf  cut  out,  for  1635,  j^st 
where  the  deaths  of  the  Oxenhams  would  be  re- 
corded, if  they  had  occurred  in  that  year.  As  to 
the  marble  monument,  it  has  disappeared.  We  are 
thus  left  in  considerable  perplexity.  Is  it  likely  that 
Howell  read  the  pamphlet  in  1641,  and  then  invented 
and  antedated  his  own  adventure  with  the  monu- 
ment }  In  that  case  could  he  have  been  so  careless 
as  to  throw  the  adventure  back  three  years  before 
the  events  recorded  in  the  pamphlet  ?  One  can 
hardly  believe  that  Howell  was  so  stupid  and  so 
dishonest.  On  the  other  hand,  the  author  of  the 
pamphlet  sticks  consistently  to  his  date  of  1635,  and 
corroborates  his  narrative  by  the  evidence  of  very 
many  witnesses.  The  whole  affair  is  a  puzzle.  The 
last  apparition  of  the  bird  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Cotton 
was  on  December   15,    1873,  at   17  Earl's-Terrace, 


io6  Books  and  Bookmen 

Kensington.  The  bird  seemed  to  be  a  common 
pigeon,  "  the  dove  of  Yama  "  in  the  Veda  ! 

Among  the  later  books  in  the  Beckford  sale,  few 
were  more  "curious"  than  the  ' Tresmerveilles  Vic- 
toires  des  Femmes'  (1553),  by  Postet.  Mr.  Beckford 
was  very  rich  in  the  works  of  this  learned  fanatic 
and  Orientalist.  Postet  wrote  on  history,  geogra- 
phy, politics,  and  finally  fell  into  the  limbo  of  unful- 
filled prophecy  and  heresy.  He  expected  the  event 
of  a  female  Messiah,  whom  he  found  in  "  La  Mere 
Jeanne,"  at  Venice.  He  was  a  kind  of  male  Joanna 
Southcote,  and  Mr.  Beckford  had  his  most  absurd 
book  bound  in  red  morocco  with  a  blue  lining.  But 
the  taste  for  literary  insanities  has  almost  gone  out, 
and  the  '  Tresmerveilles  Victoires '  fetched  only 
£22.  A  more  enjoyable  and  more  expensive  vol- 
ume was  Dolet's  *  Playsante  et  Joyeuse  Histoyre  du 
grand  Geant,  Gargantua,'  with  wood-cuts  (i542). 
This  edition,  as  the  catalogue  says,  contains  the 
passages  suppressed  in  1537.  Thereby  hangs  a 
story.  Dolet,  the  publisher,  was  a  man  of  learning, 
and  a  friend  of  Rabelais,  but  —  he  was  also  a  pub- 
lisher. Rabelais  had  suppressed  some  passages  in 
his  earlier  editions,  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
they  brought  him  within  measurable  distance  of  the 
stake.  Yet  Dolet  chose  to  pirate  the  book  and  re- 
produce the  perilous  texts.  After  all,  it  was  Dolet 
that  died  at  the  stake,  and  Rabelais  lived  out  his 
natural  life.  Dolet  is  perhaps  the  only  example  of 
a  publisher  who  perished  for  his  religious  opinions. 

A  very  pretty  book  was  the  '  Rommant  de  la  Rose,' 
published  by  Galliot  du  Pr^  in  1529.  It  is  bound  in 
red  morocco,  doubU,  by  Duseuil,  and  has  a  beautiful 
title-page  in  black  and  red,  with  a  wood-cut  of  a  lover 


Bookbindings 


107 


plucking  a  rose.  This  romance,  as  times  go,  was 
cheap  at  ;^46.  A  much  more  curious  and  expen- 
sive relic  of  Marguerite  de  Valois  was  her  copy  of 
Ronsard's  poems  (1587),  three  dumpy  volumes 
sprinkled  with  the  daisies  of  Queen  Marguerite  on 
brown  morocco,  the  work  of  Clovis  Eve,  sold  for 
;^430.  About  forty  volumes  of  Marguerite's  have 
been  sold  at  Christie's,  Grolier's  *  Sannazaro,'  in 
brown  morocco,  was  not  very  dear,  perhaps,  at  £,\2\, 
nor  the  Aldine  '  Seneca '  of  Francis  I.,  with  the  sal- 
amander and  crowned  F.,  at  ;^8i.  The  Elzevir 
'Seneca'  of  1640  fetched  ;^4i,  as  it  was  bound  by 
Le  Gascon.  The  best  copies  previously  had  gone 
for  about  £,df,  except  one,  wholly  uncut,  and  bound 
by  Trautz-Bauzonnet,  which  brought  more  than  £,C)0 
at  the  sale  of  M.  Potier.  When  John  Smith  wrote 
his  'General  History  of  Virginia'  (1624)  he  could 
not  have  guessed  that  a  single  copy  would  be  sold 
at  the  price  of  a  good  estate,  namely  £>^^. 

"  When  land  and  riches  all  are  spent, 
Then  Learning  is  most  excellent ! " 


tm^it^ 


(Bl^tUx^ 


A-^a-f ;HM''^^>K^'<^>-.'il H E  Countryman.  —  "You  know 
how  much,  for  some  time  past, 
the  editions  of  the  Elzevirs  have 
been  in  demand.  The  fancy  for 
them  has  even  penetrated  into 
the  country.  I  am  acquainted 
with  a  man  there  who  denies  him- 
self necessaries,  for  the  sake  of 
collecting  into  a  library  (where  other  books  are 
scarce  enough)  as  many  little  Elzevirs  as  he  can  lay 
his  hands  upon.  He  is  dying  of  hunger,  and  his 
consolation  is  to  be  able  to  say, '  I  have  all  the  poets 
whom  the  Elzevirs  printed.  I  have  ten  examples 
of  each  of  them,  all  with  red  letters,  and  all  of  the 
right  date.'  This,  no  doubt,  is  a  craze,  for,  good  as 
the  books  are,  if  he  kept  them  to  read  them,  one  ex- 
ample of  each  would  be  enough." 

The  Parisian,  —  "If  he  had  wanted  to  read  them, 
I  would  not  have  advised  him  to  buy  Elzevirs.  The 
editions  of  minor  authors  which  these  booksellers 
published,  even  editions  *of  the  right  date,'  as  you 
say,  are  not  too  correct.  Nothing  is  good  in  the 
books  but  the  type  and  the  paper.  Your  friend 
would  have  done  better  to  use  the  editions  of  Sry- 
phius  or  l^tienne." 


112  Books  and  Bookmen 

This  fragment  of  a  literary  dialogue  I  translate 
from  'Entretiens  sur  les  Contes  de  Fees,'  a  book 
which  contains  more  of  old  talk  about  books  and 
booksellers  than  about  fairies  and  folk-lore.  The 
'Entretiens'  were  published  in  1699,  about  sixteen 
years  after  the  Elzevirs  ceased  to  be  publishers. 
The  fragment  is  valuable  :  first,  because  it  shows  us 
how  early  the  taste  for  collecting  Elzevirs  was  fully 
developed,  and,  secondly,  because  it  contains  very 
sound  criticism  of  the  mania.  Already,  in  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  lovers  of  the  tiny  Elzevirian  books 
waxed  pathetic  over  dates,  already  they  knew  that 
the  'Caesar'  of  1635  was  the  right  'Caesar,'  already 
they  were  fond  of  the  red-lettered  pages,  as  in  the 
first  edition  of  the  'Virgil'  of  1636.  As  early  as 
1699,  too,  the  Parisian  critic  knew  that  the  editions 
were  not  very  correct,  and  that  the  paper,  type,  or- 
naments, and  genQvaX  format  were  their  main  attrac- 
tions. To  these  we  must  now  add  the  rarity  of  really 
good  Elzevirs. 

Though  Elzevirs  have  been  more  fashionable  than 
at  present,  they  are  still  regarded  by  novelists  as  the 
great  prize  of  the  book  collector.  You  read  in  nov- 
els about  "priceless  little  Elzevirs,"  about  books  "as 
rare  as  an  old  Elzevir."  I  have  met,  in  the  works  of 
a  lady  novelist  (but  not  elsewhere),  with  an  Elzevir 
'Theocritus.'  The  late  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  intro- 
duced into  one  of  his  romances  a  romantic  Elzevir 
Greek  Testament,  "worth  its  weight  in  gold."  Cas- 
ual remarks  of  this  kind  encourage  a  popular  delu- 
sion that  all  Elzevirs  are  pearls  of  considerable  price. 
When  a  man  is  first  smitten  with  the  pleasant  fever 
of  book  collecting,  it  is  for  Elzevirs  that  he  searches. 
At  first   he   thinks   himself   in    amazing   luck.     In 


Elzevirs  i  ij 

Booksellers'  Row  and  in  Castle  Street  he  "  picks 
up,"  for  a  shilling  or  two,  Elzevirs,  real  or  supposed. 
To  the  beginner,  any  book  with  a  sphere  on  the  title- 
page  is  an  Elzevir.  For  the  beginner's  instruction, 
two  copies  of  spheres  are  printed  here.     The  first  is 


a  sphere,  an  ill-cut,  ill-drawn  sphere,  which  is  not 
Elzevirian  at  all.  The  mark  was  used  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  by  many  other  booksellers  and  print- 
ers. The  second,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  true  Elze- 
virian sphere,  from  a  play  of  Moliere's,  printed  in 
1675.  Observe  the  comparatively  neat  drawing  of 
the  second  sphere,  and  be  not  led  away  after  spuri- 
ous imitations. 

Beware,  too,  of  the  vulgar  error  of  fancying  that 
little  duodecimos  with  the  mark  of  the  fox  and  the 
bee's  nest,  and  the  motto  "Quaerendo,"  come  from 
the  press  of  the  Elzevirs.  The  mark  is  that  of 
Abraham  Wolfgang,  which  name  is  not  a  pseudo- 
nym for  Elzevir.  There  are  three  sorts  of  Elzevir 
pseudonyms.  First,  they  occasionally  reprinted  the 
full  title-page,  publisher's  name  and  all,  of  the  book 
they  pirated.  Secondly,  when  they  printed  books 
of  a  "dangerous"  sort,  Jansenist  pamphlets  and  so 
forth,  they  used  pseudonyms  like  "Nic.  Schouter," 


114  Books  and  Bookmen 

on  the  *  Lettres  Provinciales '  of  Pascal.  Thirdly, 
there  are  real  pseudonyms  employed  by  the  Elze- 
virs. John  and  Daniel,  printing  at  Leyden  (1652- 
165s),  used  the  false  name  "Jean  Sambix."  The 
Elzevirs  of  Amsterdam  often  placed  the  name 
"Jacques  le  Jeune"  on  their  title-pages.  The  col- 
lector who  remembers  these  things  must  also  see 
that  his  purchases  have  the  right  ornaments  at  the 
heads  of  chapters,  the  right  tail-pieces  at  the  ends. 
Two  of  the  most  frequently  recurring  ornaments 
are  the  so-called  "Tete  de  Buffle  "  and  the  "Sirene." 
More  or  less  clumsy  copies  of  these  and  the  other 
Elzevirian  ornaments  are  common  enough  in  books 
of  the  period,  even  among  those  printed  out  of  the 
Low  Countries  ;  for  example,  in  books  published  in 
Paris. 

A  brief  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Elzevirs  may 
here  be  useful.  The  founder  of  the  family,  a  Flem- 
ish bookbinder,  Louis,  left  Louvain  and  settled  in 
Leyden  in  1580.  He  bought  a  house  opposite  the 
University,  and  opened  a  book-shop.  Another  shop, 
on  college  ground,  was  opened  in  1587.  Louis  was 
a  good  bookseller,  a  very  ordinary  publisher.  It  was 
not  till  shortly  before  his  death,  in  16 17,  that  his 
grandson  Isaac  bought  a  set  of  types  and  other 
material.  Louis  left  six  sons.  Two  of  these,  Mat- 
thew and  Bonaventure,  kept  on  the  business,  dating 
ex  offichia  Elzeviriana.  In  1625  Bonaventure  and 
Abraham  (son  of  Matthew)  became  partners.  The 
"good  dates"  of  Elzevirian  books  begin  from  1626. 
The  two  Elzevirs  chose  excellent  types,  and  after 
nine  years'  endeavors  turned  out  the  beautiful  '  Cae- 
sar' of  1635. 

Their  classical  series  in  petit  format  was  opened 


El:(evirs  ti^ 

with  'Horace*  and  'Ovid'  in  1629.  In  1641  they 
began  their  elegant  piracies  of  French  plays  and 
poetry  with  *Le  Cid.'  It  was  worth  while  being 
pirated  by  the  Elzevirs,  who  turned  you  out  like 
a  gentleman,  with  Jleurons  and  red  letters,  and  a 
pretty  frontispiece.  The  modern  pirate  dresses  you 
in  rags,  prints  you  murderously,  and  binds  you,  if 
he  binds  you  at  all,  in  some  hideous  example  of 
"  cloth  extra,"  all  gilt,  like  archaic  gingerbread. 
Bonaventure  and  Abraham  both  died  in  1652.  They 
did  not  depart  before  publishing,  in  grand  format^ 
a  desirable  work  on  fencing,  Thibault's  *  Academie 
de  I'Espee,'  This  Tibbald  also  killed  by  the  book. 
John  and  Daniel  Elzevir  came  next.  They  brought 
out  the  lovely  '  Imitation '  (Thomae  a  Kempis  cano- 
nici  regularis  ord.  S.  Augustini  De  Imitatione  Chris- 
ti) ;  I  wish  by  taking  thought  I  could  add  eight  mil- 
limetres to  the  stature  of  my  copy.  In  1655  Daniel 
joined  a  cousin,  Louis,  in  Amsterdam,  and  John 
stayed  in  Leyden.  John  died  in  1661  ;  his  widow 
struggled  on,  but  her  son  Abraham  (168 1)  let  all  fall 
into  ruins.  Abraham  died  1712.  The  Elzevirs  of 
Amsterdam  lasted  till  1680,  when  Daniel  died,  and 
the  business  was  wound  up.  The  type,  by  Christo- 
pher Van  Dyck,  was  sold  in  1681,  by  Daniel's  widow. 
Sic  transit  gloria. 

After  he  has  learned  all  these  matters  the  am- 
ateur has  still  a  great  deal  to  acquire.  He  may 
now  know  a  real  Elzevir  from  a  book  which  is 
not  an  Elzevir  at  all.  But  there  are  enormous  dif- 
ferences of  value,  rarity,  and  excellence  among  the 
productions  of  the  Elzevirian  press.  The  book- 
stalls teem  with  small,  "cropped,"  dingy,  dirty,  bat- 
tered Elzevirian   editions   of   the  classics,  not  "of 


ifS  Books  and  Bookmen 

the  good  date."  On  these  it  is  not  worth  while 
to  expend  a  couple  of,  shillings,  especially  as  Elze- 
virian type  is  too  small  to  be  read  with  comfort  by 
most  modern  eyes.  No,  let  the  collector  save  his 
money;  avoid  littering  his  shelves  with  what  he 
will  soon  find  to  be  rubbish,  and  let  him  wait  the 
rare  chance  of  acquiring  a  really  beautiful  and  rare 
Elzevir. 

Meantime,  and  before  we  come  to  describe  Elze- 
virs of  the  first  flight,  let  it  be  remembered  that  the 
"taller"  the  copy,  the  less  harmed  and  nipped  by 
the  binder's  shears,  the  better.  "Men  scarcely  know 
how  beautiful  fire  is,"  says  Shelley ;  and  we  may  say 
that  most  men  hardly  know  how  beautiful  an  Elzevir 
was  in  its  uncut  and  original  form.  The  Elzevirs  we 
have  may  be  "dear,"  but  they  are  certainly  "dumpy 
twelves."  Their  fair  proportions  have  been  docked 
by  the  binder.  At  the  Beckford  sale  there  was  a 
pearl  of  a  book,  a  'Marot;'  not  an  Elzevir,  indeed, 
but  a  book  published  by  Wetstein,  the  successor  of 
the  Elzevirs.  This  exquisite  pair  of  volumes,  bound 
in  blue  morocco,  was  absolutely  unimpaired,  and  was 
a  sight  to  bring  happy  tears  into  the  eyes  of  the 
amateur  of  Elzevirs.  There  was  a  gracious  svelte 
elegance  about  these  tomes,  an  appealing  and  ex- 
quisite delicacy  of  proportion,  that  linger  like  sweet 
music  in  the  memory.  I  have  a  copy  of  the  Wet- 
stein *  Marot '  myself,  not  a  bad  copy,  though  mur- 
derously bound  in  that  ecclesiastical  sort  of  brown 
calf  antique,  which  goes  well  with  hymn  books,  and 
reminds  one  of  cakes  of  chocolate.  But  my  copy  is 
only  some  128  miUimetres  in  height,  whereas  the 
uncut  Bedford  copy  (it  had  belonged  to  the  great 
Pixerecourt)  was  at  least  1 30  millimetres  high.     Be- 


El:{evirs  tig 

side  the  uncut  example  mine  looks  like  Cinderella's 
plain  sister  beside  the  beauty  of  the  family. 

Now  the  moral  is  that  only  tall  Elzevirs  are  beau- 
tiful, only  tall  Elzevirs  preserve  their  ancient  propor- 
tions, only  tall  Elzevirs  are  worth  collecting.  Dr. 
Lemuel  Gulliver  remarks  that  the  King  of  Lilliput 
was  taller  than  any  of  his  court  by  about  half  the 
thickness  of  a  nail,  and  that  his  altitude  filled  the 
minds  of  all  with  awe.  Well,  the  Philistine  may  think 
a  few  millimetres,  more  or  less,  in  the  height  of  an 
Elzevir  are  of  little  importance.  When  he  comes  to 
sell,  he  will  discover  the  difference.  An  uncut,  or 
almost  uncut,  copy  of  a  good  Elzevir  may  be  worth 
fifty  or  sixty  pounds  or  more  ;  an  ordinary  copy  may 
bring  fewer  pence.  The  binders  usually  pare  down 
the  top  and  bottom  more  than  the  sides.  I  have 
a  '  Rabelais '  of  the  good  date,  with  the  red  letters 
(1663),  and  some  of  the  pages  have  never  been 
opened,  at  the  sides.  But  the  height  is  only  some 
122  millimetres,  a  mere  dwarf.  Anything  over  130 
millimetres  is  very  rare.  Therefore  the  collector  of 
Elzevirs  should  have  one  of  those  useful  ivory-han- 
dled knives  on  which  the  French  measures  are 
marked,  and  thus  he  will  at  once  be  able  to  satisfy 
himself  as  to  the  exact  height  of  any  example  which 
he  encounters. 

Let  us  now  assume  that  the  amateur  quite  under- 
stands what  a  proper  Elzevir  should  be :  tall,  clean, 
well  bound  if  possible,  and  of  the  good  date.  But 
we  have  still  t»  learn  what  the  good  dates  are,  and 
this  is  matter  for  the  study  and  practice  of  a  well- 
spent  life.  We  may  gossip  about  a  few  of  the  more 
famous  Elzevirs,  those  without  which  no  collection 
is  complete.     Of  all  Elzevirs  the  most  famous  and 


I20  Books  and  Bookmen 

the  most  expensive  is  an  old  cookery  book,  "  *  Le 
Pastissier  Francois.'  Wherein  is  taught  the  way  to 
make  all  sorts  of  pastry,  useful  to  all  sorts  of  per- 
sons. Also  the  manner  of  preparing  all  manner  of 
eggs,  for  fast-days,  and  other  days,  in  more  than 
sixty  fashions.     Amsterdam,  Louys  and  Daniel  El- 


THE  "SAGE. 


zevir.  1665."  The  mark  is  not  the  old  "Sage,"  but 
the  "  Minerva  "  with  her  owl.  Now  this  book  has 
no  intrinsic  value  any  more  than  a  Tauchnitz  re- 
print of  Mr.  Reeves's  volume  on  cooking.  The  *  Pas- 
tissier '  is  cherished  because  it  is  so  very  rare.  The 
tract  passed  into  the  hands  of  cooks,  and  the  hands 
of  cooks  are  detrimental  to  literature.  Just  as  nur- 
sery books,  fairy  tales,  and  the  like  are  destroyed 
from  generation  to  generation,  so  it  happens  with 
books  used  in  the  kitchen.  The  '  Pastissier,'  to  be 
sure,  has  a  good  frontispiece,  a  scene  in  a  Low  Coun- 
try kitchen,  among  the  dead  game  and  the  dainties. 
The  buxom  cook  is  making  a  game  pie  ;  a  pheasant 
pie,  decorated  with  the  bird's  head  and  tail-feathers, 
is  already  made. 

Not  for  these  charms,  but  for  its  rarity,  is  the  *  Pas- 
tissier '  coveted.     In  an  early  edition  of  the  '  Man- 


A    Amfterdani., 
Chez  Liftnrs jet 'Darnel  Elzevier  ,A'.  j  6 ^ i^ . 


Elzevirs  12^ 

uel'  (1821)  Brunet  says,  with  a  feigned  brutality  (for 
he  dearly  loved  an  Elzevir),  "Till  now  I  have  dis- 
dained to  admit  this  book  into  my  work,  but  I  have 
yielded  to  the  prayers  of  amateurs.  Besides,  how 
could  I  keep  out  a  volume  which  was  sold  for  one 
hundred  and  one  francs  in  1819?"  One  hundred 
and  one  francs  !  If  I  could  only  get  a  *  Pastissier ' 
for  one  hundred  and  one  francs !  But  our  grand- 
fathers lived  in  the  Bookman's  Paradise.  "II  n'est 
pas  jusqu'aux  Anglais,"  adds  Brunet — "the  very 
English  themselves — have  a  taste  for  the  'Pastis- 
sier.' "  The  Duke  of  Marlborough's  copy  was  actu- 
ally sold  for  ^\  4^-.  It  would  have  been  money  in 
the  ducal  pockets  of  the  house  of  Marlborough  to 
have  kept  this  volume  till  the  general  sale  of  all 
their  portable  property  at  which  our  generation  is 
privileged  to  assist.  No  wonder  the  '  Pastissier ' 
was  thought  rare.  Berard  only  knew  two  copies. 
Pietiers,  writing  on  the  Elzevirs  in  1845,  could  cite 
only  five  '  Pastissiers,'  and,  in  his  '  Annales '  he  had 
found  out  but  five  more.  Wilhelm,  on  the  other 
hand,  enumerates  some  thirty,  not  including  Motte- 
ley's.  Motteley  was  an  uncultivated,  untaught  en- 
thusiast. He  knew  no  Latin,  but  he  had  a  flair 
for  uncut  Elzevirs.  "  Incomptis  capillis,"  he  would 
cry  (it  was  all  his  lore)  as  he  gloated  over  his  treas- 
ures. They  were  all  burnt  by  the  lamented  Com- 
mune in  the  Louvre  Library. 

A  few  examples  may  be  given  of  the  prices 
brought  by  '  Le  Pastissier  '  in  later  days.  Sensier's 
copy  was  but  128  millimetres  in  height,  and  had  the 
old  ordinary  vellum  binding,  —  in  fact,  it  closely 
resembled  a  copy  which  Messrs.  Ellis  and  White 
had  for   sale  in   Bond  Street   in    1883.     The  Eng- 


124  Books  and  Bookmen 

lish  booksellers  asked,  I  think,  about  1,500  francs 
for  their  copy.  Sensier's  was  sold  for  128  francs 
in  April,  1828;  for  201  francs  in  1837.  Then  the 
book  was  gloriously  bound  by  Trautz-Bauzonnet, 
and  was  sold  with  Potier's  books  in  1870,  when  it 
fetched  2,910  francs.  At  the  Benzon  sale  (1875)  it 
fetched  3,255  francs,  and,  falling  dreadfully  in  price, 
was  sold  again  in  1877  for  2,200  francs.  M.  Dutuit, 
at  Rouen,  has  a  taller  copy,  bound  by  Bauzonnet. 
Last  time  it  was  sold  (1851)  it  brought  251  francs. 
The  Due  de  Chartres  has  now  the  copy  of  Pieters, 
the  historian  of  the  Elzevirs,  valued  at  3,000  francs. 
About  thirty  years  ago  no  fewer  than  three  copies 
were  sold  at  Brighton,  of  all  places.  M.  Quentin 
Bauchart  has  a  copy  only  127  millimetres  in  height, 
which  was  c^d/  a  V amiable  for  ;!^i8o.  M.  Char- 
tenes,  of  Metz,  has  a  copy  now  bound  by  Bauzon- 
net which  was  sold  for  four  francs  in  1780.  We 
call  this  the  age  of  cheap  books,  but  before  the  Rev- 
olution books  were  cheaper.  It  is  fair  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  this  example  of  the  '  Pastissier  '  was  then 
bound  up  with  another  book,  Vlacq's  edition  of  '  Le 
Cuisinier  Francois,'  and  so  went  cheaper  than  it 
would  otherwise  have  done.  M.  de  Fontaine  de 
Resbecq  declares  that  a  friend  of  his  bought  six 
original  pieces  of  Moliere's  bound  up  with  an  old 
French  translation  of  Garth's  '  Dispensary.'  The 
one  faint  hope  left  to  the  poor  book  collector  is  that 
he  may  find  a  valuable  tract  lurking  in  the  leaves  of 
some  bound  collection  of  trash.  I  have  an  original 
copy  of  Moliere's  *  Les  Fascheux '  bound  up  with  a 
treatise  on  precious  stones,  but  the  bookseller  from 
whom  I  bought  it  knew  it  was  there  !  That  makes 
all  the  difference. 


PASTISSIER 

FRANCOIS. 

©iieft  cnfeigae  La  manierede 

ifiire  touce  Corte  de  PaftiCfe- 

jrie,  cres-utile  \  rontc  foito 

de  perfonnes. 

MNSE.MBIE 

lemojen  d'aprefler  tomes  form  ^mifi 

fUrles jours  matgres »  &atitrcs, 

^nplus  de  foixamefa^om^ 


»/4,  ^USTE  R.  D  ^  M, 

Cliez  Loiiys  8i  Daniel  Elzevfer* 
A,    M.  DC  JL.Y. 


Elzevirs  I2y 

But,  to  return  to  our  '  Pastissier,'  here  is  M.  de 
Fontaine  de  Resbecq's  account  of  how  he  wooed 
and  won  his  own  copy  of  this  illustrious  Elzevir.  "  I 
began  my  walk  to-day,"  says  this  haunter  of  an- 
cient stalls,  **  by  the  Pont  Marie  and  the  Quai  de  la 
Greve,  the  pillars  of  Hercules  of  the  book-hunting 
world.  After  having  viewed  and  reviewed  these 
remote  books,  I  was  going  away,  when  my  attention 
was  caught  by  a  small  naked  volume,  without  a 
stitch  of  binding.  I  seized  it,  and  what  was  my 
delight  when  I  recognized  one  of  the  rarest  of  that 
famed  Elzevir  collection  whose  height  is  measured 
as  minutely  as  the  carats  of  the  diamond.  There 
was  no  indication  of  price  on  the  box  where  this 
jewel  was  lying;  the  book,  though  unbound,  was 
perfectly  clean  within.  *  How  much  .■* '  said  I  to 
the  bookseller.  '  You  can  have  it  for  six  sous,'  he 
answered  ;  '  is  it  too  much } '  *  No,'  said  I,  and, 
trembling  a  little,  I  handed  him  the  thirty  centimes 
he  asked  for  the  *  Pastissier  Frangois.'  You  may 
believe,  my  friend,  that  after  such  a  piece  of  luck  at 
the  start,  one  goes  home  fondly  embracing  the  be- 
loved object  of  one's  search.  That  is  exactly  what 
I  did." 

Can  this  tale  be  true }  Is  such  luck  given  by  the 
jealous  fates  mortalibus  cegris  ?  M.  de  Resbecq's 
find  was  made  apparently  in  1856,  when  trout  were 
plenty  in  the  streams,  and  rare  books  not  so  very 
rare.  To  my  own  knowledge  an  English  collector 
has  bought  an  original  play  of  Moliere's,  in  the 
original  vellum,  for  eighteen  pence.  But  no  one  has 
such  luck  any  longer.  Not,  at  least,  in  London.  A 
more  expensive  *  Pastissier '  than  that  which  brought 


128  Books  and  Bookmen 

six  sous  was  priced  in  Bachelin  Deflorenne's  cata- 
logue at  ;^240.  A  curious  thing  occurred  when 
two  uncut  '  Pastissiers  '  turned  up  simultaneously  in 
Paris.  One  of  them  Morgand  and  Fatout  sold  for 
;f  400.  Clever  people  argued  that  one  of  the  twin 
uncut  *  Pastissiers  '  must  be  an  imitation,  a  fac-simile 
by  means  of  photogravure,  or  some  other  process. 
But  it  was  triumphantly  established  that  both  were 
genuine  ;  they  had  minute  points  of  difference  in  the 
ornaments. 

M.  Willems,  the  learned  historian  of  the  Elze- 
virs, is  indignant  at  the  successes  of  a  book  which, 
as  Brunet  declares,  is  badly  printed.  There  must 
be  at  least  forty  known  '  Pastissiers '  in  the  world. 
Yes  ;  but  there  are  at  least  4,000  people  who  would 
greatly  rejoice  to  possess  a  '  Pastissier,'  and  some 
of  these  desirous  ones  are  very  wealthy.  While 
this  state  of  the  market  endures,  the  '  Pastissier ' 
will  fetch  higher  prices  than  the  other  varieties. 
Another  extremely  rare  Elzevir  is  '  L'lllustre  The- 
atre de  Mons.  Corneille'  (Leyden,  1644).  This  con- 
tains '  Le  Cid,'  '  Les  Horaces,'  *  Le  Cinna,'  '  La 
Mort  de  Pompee,'  'Le  Polyeucte.'  The  name,  'L'll- 
lustre Theatre,'  appearing  at  that  date  has  an  inter- 
est of  its  own.  In  1643-44,  Moliere  and  Madeleine 
Bejart  had  just  started  the  company  which  they 
called  '  LTllustre  Theatre.'  Only  six  or  seven  cop- 
ies of  the  book  are  actually  known,  though  three  or 
four  are  believed  to  exist  in  England,  probably  all 
covered  with  dust  in  the  library  of  some  lord,  "  He 
has  a  very  good  library,"  I  once  heard  some  one  say 
to  a  noble  earl,  whose  own  library  is  famous.  "  And 
what  can  a  fellow  do  with  a  very  good  library  ?  "  an- 


Elzevirs  i2g 

swered  the  descendant  of  the  Crusaders,  who  proba- 
bly (being  a  youth  light-hearted  and  content)  was 
ignorant  of  his  own  great  possessions.  An  expen- 
sive copy  of  '  LTllustre  Theatre,'  bound  by  Trautz- 
Bauzonnet,  was  sold  for  ;^30O. 

Among  Elzevirs  desirable,  yet  not  hopelessly  rare, 
is  the  'Virgil'  of  1636.  Heinsius  was  the  editor  of 
this  beautiful  volume,  prettily  printed,  but  incor- 
rect. Probably  it  is  hard  to  correct  with  absolute 
accuracy  works  in  the  pretty  but  minute  type  which 
the  Elzevirs  affected.  They  have  won  fame  by  the 
elegance  of  their  books,  but  their  intention  was  to 
sell  good  books  cheap,  like  Michel  Levy.  The  small 
type  was  required  to  get  plenty  of  "  copy  "  into  lit- 
tle bulk.  Nicholas  Heinsius,  the  son  of  the  editor 
of  the  'Virgil,'  when  he  came  to. correct  his  father's 
edition,  found  that  it  contained  so  many  coquilles,  or 
misprints,  as  to  be  nearly  the  most  incorrect  copy 
in  the  world.  Heyne  says,  "Let  the  'Virgil'  be  one 
of  the  rare  Elzevirs,  if  you  please,  but  within  it  has 
scarcely  a  trace  of  any  good  quality."  Yet  the  first 
edition  of  this  beautiful  little  book,  with  its  two 
pages  of  red  letters,  is  so  desirable  that,  till  he  could 
possess  it,  Charles  Nodier  would  not  profane  his 
shelves  by  any  '  Virgil '  at  all. 

Equally  fine  is  the  'Caesar'  of  1635,- which,  with 
the  'Virgil'  of  1636  and  the  'Imitation'  without 
date,  M.  Willems  thinks  the  most  successful  works 
of  the  Elzevirs,  "one  of  the  most  enviable  jewels 
in  the  casket  of  the  bibliophile."  It  may  be  recog- 
nized by  the  page  238,  which  is  erroneously  printed 
248.  A  good  average  height  is  from  125  to  128  mil- 
limetres.    The  highest  known  is   130  millimetres. 


'30 


Books  and  Bookmen 


This  book,  like  the  *  Imitation,'  has  one  of  the  pretty 
and  ingenious  frontispieces  which  the  Elzevirs  pre- 
fixed to  their  books.  So  farewell,  and  good  speed 
in  your  sport,  ye  hunters  of  Elzevirs,  and  may  you 
find  the  rarest  Elzevir  of  all,  *  L'Aimable  Mere  de 
Jesus.' 


^ome  3iapanej9!e  'Bogie'iBooftjai 


^otne  giapane^e  Q3og(e^'Boofe0 


HERE  is  or  used  to  be  a  poem  for 
infant  minds  of  a  rather  Pharisai- 
cal character,  which  was  popular 
in  the  nursery  when  I  was  a 
youngster.  It  ran  something  like 
this  :  — 

"  I  thank  my  stars  that  I  was  born 
A  little  British  child." 

Perhaps  these  were  not  the  very  words,  but  that 
was  decidedly  the  sentiment.  Look  at  the  Japanese 
infants,  from  the  pencil  of  the  famous  Hokusai. 
Though  they  are  not  British,  were  there  ever  two 
jollier,  happier  small  creatures  ?  Did  Leech,  or  Mr. 
Du  Maurier,  or  Andrea  della  Robbia  ever  present  a 
more  delightful  view  of  innocent,  well-pleased  child- 
hood .''  Well,  these  Japanese  children,  if  they  are 
in  the  least  incHned  to  be  timid  or  nervous,  must 
have  an  awful  time  of  it  at  night  in  the  dark,  and 
when  they  make  that  eerie  "  northwest  passage " 
bedwards  through  the  darkling  house  of  which  Mr. 
Stevenson  sings  the  perils  and  the  emotions.  All 
of  us  who  did  not  suffer  under  parents  brought  up 
on  the  views  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  have  endured, 
in  childhood,  a  good  deal  from  ghosts.     But  it  is 


I  ^4  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

nothing  to  what  Japanese  children  bear,  for  our 
ghosts  are  to  the  spectres  of  Japan  as  moonlight  is 
to  sunlight,  or  as  water  unto  whiskey.  Personally  I 
may  say  that  few  people  have  been  plagued  by  the 
terror  that  walketh  in  darkness  more  than  myself. 
At  the  early  age  of  ten  I  had  the  tales  of  the  ingen- 
ious Mr.  Edgar  Poe  and  of  Charlotte  Bronte  "  put 
into  my  hands  "  by  a  cousin  who  had  served  as  a 
Bashi  Bazouk,  and  knew  not  the  meaning  of  fear. 
But  I  did,  and  perhaps  even  Nelson  would  have 
found  out  "  what  fear  was,"  or  the  boy  in  the  Norse 
tale  would  have  "  learned  to  shiver,"  if  he  had  been 
left  alone  to  peruse  'Jane  Eyre,'  and  the  'Black 
Cat,'  and  the '  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,^  as  I  was. 
Every  night  I  expected  to  wake  up  in  my  coffin, 
having  been  prematurely  buried  ;  or  to  hear  sighs 
in  the  area,  followed  by  light,  unsteady  footsteps  on 
the  stairs,  and  then  to  see  a  lady  all  in  a  white  shroud 
stained  with  blood  and  clay  stagger  into  my  room, 
the  victim  of  too  rapid  interment.  As  to  the  notion 
that  my  respected  kinsman  had  a  mad  wife  con- 
cealed on  the  premises,  and  that  a  lunatic  aunt, 
black  in  the  face  with  suppressed  mania,  would  burst 
into  my  chamber,  it  was  comparatively  a  harmless 
fancy,  and  not  particularly  disturbing.  Between 
these  and  the  '  Yellow  Dwarf,'  who  (though  only  the 
invention  of  the  Countess  D'Aulnoy)  might  frighten 
a  nervous  infant  into  hysterics,  I  personally  had  as 
bad  a  time  of  it  in  the  night  watches  as  any  happy 
British  child  has  survived.  But  our  ogres  are  noth- 
ing to  the  bogies  which  make  not  only  night  but  day 
terrible  to  the  studious  infants  of  Japan  and  China. 

Chinese  ghosts  are  probably  much  the  same  as 
Japanese  ghosts.    The  Japanese  have  borrowed  most 


Some  Japanese  Bogie-Books  i^y 

things,  including  apparitions  and  awesome  sprites 
and  grisly  fiends,  from  the  Chinese,  and  then  have 
improved  on  the  original  model.  Now  we  have  a 
very  full,  complete,  and  horror-striking  account  of 
Chinese  harnts  (as  the  country  people  in  Tennessee 
call  them)  from  Mr.  Herbert  Giles,  who  has  trans- 
lated scores  of  Chinese  ghost  stories  in  his  *  Strange 
Tales  from  a  Chinese  Studio'  (De  la  Rue,  1880). 
Mr.  Giles's  volumes  prove  that  China  is  the  place 
for  Messrs.  Gurney  and  Myers,  the  secretaries  of  the 
Psychical  Society. 

Ghosts  do  not  live  a  hole-and-corner  life  in  China, 
but  boldly  come  out  and  take  their  part  in  the  pleas- 
ures and  business  of  life.  It  has  always  been  a 
question  with  me  whether  ghosts,  in  a  haunted 
house,  appear  when  there  is  no  audience.  What 
does  the  spectre  in  the  tapestried  chamber  do  when 
the  house  is  not  full,  and  no  guest  is  put  in  the  room 
to  bury  strangers  in,  the  haunted  room  .-•  Does  the 
ghost  sulk  and  complain  that  there  is  "  no  house," 
and  refuse  to  rehearse  his  little  performance,  in 
a  conscientious  and  disinterestedly  artistic  spirit, 
when  deprived  of  the  artist's  true  pleasure,  the 
awakening  of  sympathetic  emotion  in  the  mind  of 
the  spectator.?  We  give  too  little  thought  and  sym- 
pathy to  ghosts,  who  in  our  old  castles  and  country 
houses  often  find  no  one  to  appear  to  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end.  Only  now  and  then  is  a  guest 
placed  in  the  "  haunted  room."  Then  I  like  to 
fancy  the  glee  of  the  lady  in  green,  or  the  radiant 
boy,  or  the  headless  man,  or  the  old  gentleman  in 
snuff-colored  clothes,  as  he,  or  she,  recognizes  the 
presence  of  a  spectator,  and  prepares  to  give  his  or 
her  best  effects  in  the  familiar  style. 


!^8  Books  and  Bookmen 

Now  in  China  and  Japan,  certainly  a  ghost  does 
not  wait  till  people  enter  the  haunted  room :  a  ghost, 
like  a  person  of  fashion,  "goes  everywhere."  More- 
over, he  has  this  artistic  excellence,  that  very  often 
you  don't  know  him  from  an  embodied  person.  He 
counterfeits  mortality  so  cleverly  that  he  (the  ghost) 
has  been  known  to  personate  a  candidate  for  honors, 
and  pass  an  examination  for  him.  A  pleasing  ex- 
ample of  this  kind,  illustrating  the  limitations  of 
ghosts,  is  told  in  Mr.  Giles's  book.  A  gentleman  of 
Huai  Shang  named  Chou-t'ien-i  had  arrived  at  the 
age  of  fifty,  but  his  family  consisted  of  but  one  son, 
a  fine  boy,  "  strangely  averse  from  study,"  as  if  there 
were  anything  strange  in  that.  One  day  the  son 
disappeared  mysteriously,  as  people  do  from  West 
Ham.  In  a  year  he  came  back,  said  he  had  been 
detained  in  a  Taoist  monastery,  and,  to  all  men's 
amazement,  took  to  his  books.  Next  year  he  ob- 
tained his  B.  A.  degree,  a  First  Class.  All  the  neigh- 
borhood was  overjoyed,  for  Huai  Shang  was  like 
Pembroke  College  (Oxford),  where,  according  to  the 
poet,  "  First  Class  men  are  few  and  far  between.'^ 
It  was  who  should  have  the  honor  of  giving  his 
daughter  as  bride  to  this  intellectual  marvel.  A 
very  nice  girl  was  selected,  but  most  unexpectedly 
the  B.  A.  would  not  marry.  This  nearly  broke  his 
father's  heart.  The  old  gentleman  knew,  accord- 
ing to  Chinese  belief,  that  if  he  had  no  grandchild 
there  would  be  no  one  in  the  next  generation  to 
feed  his  own  ghost  and  pay  it  all  the  needful  little 
attentions.  "  Picture  then  the  father  naming  and 
insisting  on  the  day ;  "  till  K'o-ch'ang,  B.  A.,  got 
up  and  ran  away.  His  mother  tried  to  detain  him, 
when  his  clothes  "  came  off  in  her  hand,"  and  the 


A  STORM-FIEND. 


Some  Japanese  Bogie-Boohs  141 

bachelor  vanished !  Next  day  appeared  the  real 
flesh  and  blood  son,  who  had  been  kidnapped  and 
enslaved.  The  genuine  K'o-ch'ang  was  overjoyed 
to  hear  of  his  approaching  nuptials.  The  rites  were 
duly  celebrated,  and  in  less  than  a  year  the  old  gen- 
tleman welcomed  his  much -longed -for  grandchild. 
But,  oddly  enough,  K'o-ch'ang,  though  very  jolly  and 
universally  beloved,  was  as  stupid  as  ever,  and  read 
nothing  but  the  sporting  intelligence  in  the  news- 
papers. It  was  now  universally  admitted  that  the 
learned  K'o-ch'ang  had  been  an  impostor,  a  clever 
ghost.  It  follows  that  ghosts  can  take  a  very  good 
degree ;  but  ladies  need  not  be  afraid  of  marrying 
ghosts,  owing  to  the  inveterate  shyness  of  these 
learned  spectres. 

The  Chinese  ghost  is  by  no  means  always  a  ma- 
levolent person,  as,  indeed,  has  already  been  made 
clear  from  the  affecting  narrative  of  the  ghost  who 
passed  an  examination.  Even  the  spectre  which  an- 
swers in  China  to  the  statue  in  '  Don  Juan,'  the 
statue  which  accepts  invitations  to  dinner,  is  any- 
thing but  a  malevolent  guest.  So  much  may  be 
gathered  from  the  story  of  Chu  and  Lu.  Chu  was 
an  undergraduate  of  great  courage  and  bodily  vigor, 
but  dull  of  wit.  He  was  a  married  man,  and  his 
children  (as  in  the  old  Oxford  legend)  often  rushed 
into  their  mother's  presence,  shouting,  "  Mamma ! 
mamma !  papa 's  been  plucked  again  !  "  Once  it 
chanced  that  Chu  was  at  a  wine  party,  and  the  negus 
(a  favorite  beverage  of  the  Celestials)  had  done  its 
work.  His  young  friends  betted  Chu  a  bird's-nest 
dinner  that  he  would  not  go  to  the  nearest  temple, 
enter  the  room  devoted  to  colored  sculptures  repre- 
senting the  torments  of  Purgatory,  and  carry  off  the 


142  Books  and  Bookmen 

image  of  the  Chinese  judge  of  the  dead,  their  Osiris 
or  Rhadamanthus.  Off  went  old  Chu,  and  soon  re- 
turned with  the  august  effigy  (which  wore  "a  green 
face,  a  red  beard,  and  a  hideous  expression  ")  in  his 
arms.  The  otlier  men  were  frightened,  and  begged 
Chu  to  restore  his  worship  to  his  place  on  the  infer- 
nal bench.  Before  carrying  back  the  worthy  magis- 
trate, Chu  poured  a  libation  on  the  ground  and  said, 
"Whenever  your  excellency  feels  so  disposed,  I  shall 
be  glad  to  take  a  cup  of  wine  with  you  in  a  friendly 
way."  That  very  night,  as  Chu  was  taking  a  stirrup 
cup  before  going  to  bed,  the  ghost  of  the  awful  judge 
came  to  the  door  and  entered.  Chu  promptly  put 
the  kettle  on,  mixed  the  negus,  and  made  a  night  of 
it  with  the  festive  fiend.  Their  friendship  was  never 
interrupted  from  that  moment.  The  judge  even  gave 
Chu  a  new  heart  (literally),  whereby  he  was  enabled 
to  pass  examinations ;  for  the  heart,  in  China,  is  the 
seat  of  all  the  intellectual  faculties.  For  Mrs.  Chu, 
a  plain  woman  with  a  fine  figure,  the  ghost  provided 
a  new  head,  of  a  handsome  girl  recently  slain  by  a 
robber.  Even  after  Chu's  death  the  genial  spectre 
did  not  neglect  him,  but  obtained  for  him  an  ap- 
pointment as  registrar  in  the  next  world,  with  a  cer- 
tain rank  attached. 

The  next  world,  among  the  Chinese,  seems  to  be 
a  paradise  of  bureaucracy,  patent  places,  jobs,  man- 
darins' buttons  and  tails,  and,  in  short,  the  heaven 
of  officialism.  All  civilized  readers  are  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Stockton's  humorous  story  of  'The  Trans- 
ferred Ghost.'  In  Mr.  Stockton's  view  a  man  does 
not  always  get  his  own  ghostship ;  there  is  a  vigor- 
ous competition  among  spirits  for  good  ghostships, 
and  a  great  deal  of  intrigue  and  party  feeling.     It 


A    SNOW   BOGIB. 


THB  SIMULACRUM   VULGARB. 


Some  Japanese  Bogie-Books  147 

may  be  long  before  a  disembodied  spectre  gets  any 
ghostship  at  all,  and  then,  if  he  has  little  influence, 
he  may  be  glad  to  take  a  chance  of  haunting  the 
Board  of  Trade,  or  the  Post  Office,  instead  of  "walk- 
ing "  in  the  Foreign  Office.  One  spirit  may  win  a 
post  as  White  Lady  in  the  imperial  palace,  while  an- 
other is  put  off  with  a  position  in  an  old  college  li- 
brary, or  perhaps  has  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  some 
seedy  "medium"  through  boarding-houses  and  third- 
rate  hotels.  Now  this  is  precisely  the  Chinese  view 
of  the  fates  and  fortunes  of  ghosts.  Quisque  suos 
patimur  manes. 

In  China,  to  be  brief,  and  to  quote  a  ghost  (who 
ought  to  know  what  he  was  speaking  about),  "  su- 
pernaturals  are  to  be  found  everywhere."  This  is 
the  fact  that  makes  life  so  puzzling  and  terrible  to  a 
child  of  a  believing  and  trustful  character.  These 
Oriental  bogies  do  not  appear  in  the  dark  alone,  or 
only  in  haunted  houses,  or  at  cross-roads,  or  in 
gloomy  woods.  They  are  everywhere :  every  man 
has  his  own  ghost,  every  place  has  its  peculiar 
haunting  fiend,  every  natural  phenomenon  has  its 
informing  spirit ;  every  quality,  as  hunger,  greed, 
envy,  malice,  has  an  embodied  visible  shape  prowl- 
ing about  seeking  what  it  may  devour.  Where  our 
science,  for  example,  sees  (or  rather  smells)  sewer 
gas,  the  Japanese  behold  a  slimy,  meagre,  insatiate 
wraith,  crawling  to  devour  the  lives  of  men.  Where 
we  see  a  storm  of  snow,  their  livelier  fancy  beholds 
a  comic  snow-ghost,  a  queer,  grinning  old  man 
under  a  vast  umbrella. 

The  illustrations  in  this  paper  are  only  a  few  spec- 
imens chosen  out  of  many  volumes  of  Japanese  bo- 
gies.    We  have  not  ventured  to  copy  the  very  most 


t4^  Books  and  Bookmen 

awful  spectres,  nor  dared  to  be  as  horrid  as  we  can. 
These  native  drawings,  too,  are  generally  colored  re- 
gardless of  expense,  and  the  coloring  is  often  horri- 
bly lurid  and  satisfactory.  This  embellishment,  for- 
tunately perhaps,  we  cannot  reproduce.  Meanwhile, 
if  any  child  looks  into  this  essay,  let  him  (or  her)  not 
be  alarmed  by  the  pictures  he  beholds.  Japanese 
ghosts  do  not  live  in  this  country ;  there  are  none  of 
them  even  at  the  Japanese  Legation.  Just  as  bears, 
lions,  and  rattlesnakes  are  not  to  be  seriously  dreaded 
in  our  woods  and  commons,  so  the  Japanese  ghost 
cannot  breathe  (any  more  than  a  slave  can)  in  the  air 
of  England  or  America.  We  do  not  yet  even  keep 
any  ghostly  zoological  garden  in  which  the  bogies  of 
Japanese,  Australians,  Red  Indians,  and  other  dis- 
tant peoples  may  be  accommodated.  Such  an  estab- 
lishment is  perhaps  to  be  desired  in  the  interests  of 
psychical  research,  but  that  form  of  research  has  not 
yet  been  endowed  by  a  cultivated  and  progressive 
government. 

The  first  to  attract  our  attention  represents,  as  I 
understand,  the  common  ghost,  or  sinmlacrum  vul- 
gare  of  psychical  science.  To  this  complexion  must 
we  all  come,  according  to  the  best  Japanese  opin- 
ion. Each  of  us  contains  within  him  "  somewhat  of 
a  shadowy  being,"  like  the  spectre  described  by  Dr. 
Johnson:  something  like  the  Egyptian  "Ka,"  for 
which  the  curious  may  consult  the  works  of  Miss 
Amelia  B.  Edwards  and  other  learned  Orientalists. 
The  most  recent  French  student  of  these  matters, 
the  author  of  'L'Homme  Posthume,'  is  of  opinion 
that  we  do  not  all  possess  this  double,  with  its 
power  of  surviving  our  bodily  death.  He  thinks, 
too,  that  our  ghost,  when  it  does  survive,  has  but 


A  WELL   AND   WATER    BOGIB. 


Some  Japanese  Bogie-Books  i^i 

rarely  the  energy  and  enterprise  to  make  itself  vis- 
ible to  or  audible  by  "  shadow  -  casting  men."  In 
some  extreme  cases  the  ghost  (according  to  our 
French  authority,  that  of  a  disciple  of  M,  Comte) 
feeds  fearsomely  on  the  bodies  of  the  living.  In  no 
event  does  he  believe  that  a  ghost  lasts  much  longer 
than  a  hundred  years.  After  that  it  mizzles  into 
spectre,  and  is  resolved  into  its  elements,  whatever 
they  may  be. 

A  somewhat  similar  and  (to  my  own  mind)  prob- 
ably sound  theory  of  ghosts  prevails  among  sav- 
age tribes,  and  among  such  peoples  as  the  ancient 
Greeks,  the  modern  Hindoos,  and  other  ancestor 
worshippers.  When  feeding,  as  they  all  do,  or  used 
to  do,  the  ghosts  of  the  ancestral  dead,  they  gave 
special  attention  to  the  claims  of  the  dead  of  the 
last  three  generations,  leaving  ghosts  older  than  the 
century  to  look  after  their  own  supplies  of  meat  and 
drink.  The  negligence  testifies  to  a  notion  that 
very  old  ghosts  are  of  little  account,  for  good  or 
evil.  On  the  other  hand,  as  regards  the  longevity 
of  spectres,  we  must  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  ex- 
ample of  the  bogie  in  ancient  armor  which  appears 
in  Glamis  Castle,  or  to  the  Jesuit  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's date  that  haunts  the  library  (and  a  very  nice 
place  to  haunt :  I  ask  no  better,  as  a  ghost  at  Lord's 
might  cause  a  scandal)  of  an  English  nobleman. 
With  these  instanticB  contradictorice,  as  Bacon  calls 
them,  present  to  our  minds,  we  must  not  (in  the 
present  condition  of  psychical  research)  dogmatize 
too  hastily  about  the  span  of  life  allotted  to  the 
simulacrum  vulgare.  Very  probably  his  chances  of 
a  prolonged  existence  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
square  of  the  distance  of  time  which  severs  him 


1^2  Books  and  Bookmen 

from  our  modern  days.  No  one  has  ever  even  pre- 
tended to  see  the  ghost  of  an  ancient  Roman  buried 
in  these  islands,  still  less  of  a  Pict  or  Scot,  or  a  Pa- 
laeolithic man,  welcome  as  such  an  apparition  would 
be  to  many  of  us.  Thus  the  evidence  does  certainly 
look  as  if  there  were  a  kind  of  statute  of  limitations 
among  ghosts,  which,  from  many  points  of  view,  is 
not  an  arrangement  at  which  we  should  repine. 

The  Japanese  artist  expresses  his  own  sense  of 
the  casual  and  fluctuating  nature  of  ghosts  by  draw- 
ing his  spectre  in  shaky  lines,  as  if  the  model  had 
given  the  artist  the  horrors.  This  simulacrum  rises 
out  of  the  earth  like  an  exhalation,  and  groups  itself 
into  shape  above  the  spade  with  which  all  that  is 
corporeal  of  its  late  owner  has  been  interred.  Please 
remark  the  uncomforted  and  dismal  expression  of 
the  simulacrum.  We  must  remember  that  the  ghost 
or  "Ka"  is  not  the  "soul,"  which  has  other  destinies 
in  the  future  world,  good  or  evil,  but  is  only  a  shad- 
owy resemblance,  condemned,  as  in  the  Egyptian 
creed,  to  dwell  in  the  tomb  and  hover  near  it.  The 
Chinese  and  Japanese  have  their  own  definite  the- 
ory of  the  next  world,  and  we  must  by  no  means 
confuse  the  eternal  fortunes  of  the  permanent,  con- 
scious, and  responsible  self,  already  inhabiting  other 
worlds  than  ours,  with  the  eccentric  vagaries  of  the 
semi-material  tomb-haunting  larva,  which  so  often 
develops  a  noisy  and  bear-fighting  disposition  quite 
unlike  the  character  of  its  proprietor  in  life. 

The  next  bogie,  so  limp  and  washed-out  as  he 
seems,  with  his  white,  drooping,  dripping  arms  and 
hands,  reminds  us  of  that  horrid  French  species  of 
apparition,  "la  lavandi^re  de  la  nuit,"  who  washes 
dead  men's  Unen  in  the  moonlit  pools  and  rivers. 


KAISING   THE  WIND. 


A   CHINK    AND   CREVICE    BOGIE. 


Some  Japanese  Bogie-Books  157 

Whether  this  simulacrum  be  meant  for  the  spirit  of 
the  well  (for  everything  has  its  spirit  in  Japan),  or 
whether  it  be  the  ghost  of  some  mortal  drowned  in 
the  well,  I  cannot  say  with  absolute  certainty ;  but 
the  opinion  of  the  learned  tends  to  the  former  con- 
clusion. Naturally  a  Japanese  child,  when  sent  in 
the  dusk  to  draw  water,  will  do  so  with  fear  and 
trembling,  for  this  limp,  floppy  apparition  might 
scare  the  boldest.  Another  bogie,  a  terrible  crea- 
tion of  fancy,  I  take  to  be  a  vampire,  about  which 
the  curious  can  read  in  Dom  Calmet,  who  will  tell 
them  how  whole  villages  in  Hungary  have  been  de- 
populated by  vampires  ;  or  he  may  study  in  Fauriel's 
'  Chansons  de  la  Grece  Moderne '  the  vampires  of 
modern  Hellas. 

Another  plan,  and  perhaps  even  more  satisfactory 
to  a  timid  or  superstitious  mind,  is  to  read  in  a 
lonely  house  at  midnight  a  story  named  *  Carmilla,' 
printed  in  Mr.  Sheridan  Le  Fanu's  '  In  a  Glass 
Darkly.'  That  work  will  give  you  the  peculiar  sen- 
timent of  vampirism,  will  produce  a  gelid  perspira- 
^on,  and  reduce  the  patient  to  a  condition  in  which 
he  will  be  afraid  to  look  round  the  room.  If,  while 
in  this  mood,  some  one  tells  him  Mr.  Augustus 
Hare's  story  of  Crooglin  Grange,  his  education  in 
the  practice  and  theory  of  vampires  will  be  com- 
plete, and  he  will  be  a  very  proper  and  well-qualified 
inmate  of  Earlswood  Asylum.  The  most  awful  Jap- 
anese vampire,  caught  red-handed  in  the  act,  a  hid- 
eous, bestial  incarnation  of  ghoulishness,  we  have 
carefully  refrained  from  reproducing. 

Scarcely  more  agreeable  is  the  bogie,  or  witch, 
blowing  from  her  mouth  a  malevolent  exhalation,  an 
embodiment  of  malignant  and  maleficent  sorcery. 


1^8 


Books  and  Bookmen 


The  vapor  which  flies  and  curls  from  the  mouth  con- 
stitutes "a  sending,"  in  the  technical  language  of 
Icelandic  wizards,  and  is  capable  (in  Iceland,  at  all 
events)  of  assuming  the  form  of  some  detestable 
supernatural  animal,  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  hated 
rival.  In  the  case  of  our  last  example  it  is  very 
hard  indeed  to  make  head  or  tail  of  the  spectre  rep- 
resented. Chinks  and  crannies  are  his  domain ; 
through  these  he  drops  upon  you.  He  is  a  merry 
but  not  an  attractive  or  genial  ghost.  Where  there 
are  such  "  visions  about "  it  may  be  admitted  that 
children,  apt  to  believe  in  all  such  fancies,  have  a 
youth  of  variegated  and  intense  misery,  recurring 
with  special  vigor  at  bed-time.  But  we  look  again 
at  our  first  picture,  and  hope  and  trust  that  Jap- 
anese boys  and  girls  are  as  happy  as  these  jolly  lit- 
tle creatures  appear. 


a  Xoofeman'^  pntiatoxv 


a  'Boolitnan'^  f^rgator^ 


IHOMAS  BLINTON  was  a  book- 
hunter.  He  had  always  been  a 
book-hunter,  ever  since,  at  an  ex- 
tremely early  age,  he  had  awak- 
ened to  the  errors  of  his  ways  as 
a  collector  of  stamps  and  mono- 
grams. In  book-hunting  he  saw 
no  harm  ;  nay,  he  would  contrast 
its  joys,  in  a  rather  pharisaical  style,  with  the  pleas- 
ures of  shooting  and  fishing.  He  constantly  de- 
clined to  believe  that  the  devil  came  for  that  re- 
nowned amateur  of  black  letter,  G.  Steevens.  Dibdin 
himself,  who  tells  the  story  (with  obvious  anxiety 
and  alarm),  pretends  to  refuse  credit  to  the  ghastly 
narrative.  "  His  language,"  says  Dibdin,  in  his 
account  of  the  book-hunter's  end,  "was,  too  fre- 
quently, the  language  of  imprecation."  This  is 
rather  good,  as  if  Dibdin  thought  a  gentleman  might 
swear  pretty  often,  but  not  "  too  frequently."  "  Al- 
though I  am  not  disposed  to  admit,"  Dibdin  goes  on, 
"  the  whole  of  the  testimony  of  the  good  woman 
who  watched  by  Steevens's  bedside,  although  my 
prejudices  (as  they  may  be  called)  will  not  allow  me 
to  believe  that  the  windows  shook,  and  that  strange 


1 62  Books  and  Bookmen 

noises  and  deep  groans  were  heard  at  midnight  in 
his  room,  yet  no  creature  of  common  sense  (and  this 
woman  possessed  the  quality  in  an  eminent  degree) 
could  mistake  oaths  for  prayers  ;  "  and  so  forth.  In 
short,  Dibdin  clearly  holds  that  the  windows  did 
shake  "without  a  blast,"  like  the  banners  in  Branx- 
holme  Hall  when  somebody  came  for  the  Goblin 
Page. 

But  Thomas  Blinton  would  hear  of  none  of  these 
things.  He  said  that  his  taste  made  him  take  exer- 
cise ;  that  he  walked  from  the  City  to  West  Kensing- 
ton every  day,  to  beat  the  covers  of  the  book-stalls, 
while  other  men  travelled  in  the  expensive  cab  or 
the  unwholesome  Metropolitan  Railway.  We  are 
all  apt  to  hold  favorable  views  of  our  own  amuse- 
ments, and,  for  ray  own  part,  I  believe  that  trout 
and  salmon  are  incapable  of  feeling  pain.  But  the 
flimsiness  of  Blinton's  theories  must  be  apparent  to 
every  unbiassed  moralist.  His  "  harmless  taste  " 
really  involved  most  of  the  deadly  sins,  or  at  all 
events  a  fair  working  majority  of  them.  He  cov- 
eted his  neighbors'  books.  When  he  got  the  chance 
he  bought  books  in  a  cheap  market  and  sold  them 
in  a  dear  market,  thereby  degrading  literature  to 
the  level  of  trade.  He  took  advantage  of  the  igno- 
rance of  uneducated  persons  who  kept  book-stalls. 
He  was  envious,  and  grudged  the  good  fortune  of 
others,  while  he  rejoiced  in  their  failures.  He 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  appeals  of  poverty.  He 
was  luxurious,  and  laid  out  more  money  than  he 
should  have  done  on  his  selfish  pleasures,  often 
adorning  a  volume  with  a  morocco  binding  when 
Mrs.  Blinton  sighed  in  vain  for  some  old  point 
d'Ale7iqo7i  lace.     Greedy,  proud,  envious,  stingy,  ex- 


A  Bookman's  Purgatory  i6j 

travagant,  and  sharp  in  his  dealings,  Blinton  was 
guilty  of  most  of  the  sins  which  the  Church  recog- 
nizes as  "  deadly." 

On  the  very  day  before  that  of  which  the  affect- 
ing history  is  now  to  be  told,  Blinton  had  been  run- 
ning the  usual  round  of  crime.  He  had  (as  far  as 
intentions  went)  defrauded  a  bookseller  in  Holywell 
Street  by  purchasing  from  him,  for  the  sum  of  two 
shillings,  what  he  took  to  be  a  very  rare  Elzevir.  It 
is  true  that  when  he  got  home  and  consulted  '  Wil- 
lems,'  he  found  that  he  had  got  hold  of  the  wrong 
copy,  in  which  the  figures  denoting  the  numbers  of 
pages  are  printed  right,  and  which  is  therefore 
worth  exactly  "  nuppence "  to  the  collector.  But 
the  intention  is  the  thing,  and  Blinton's  intention 
was  distinctly  fraudulent.  When  he  discovered  his 
error,  then  "his  language,"  as  Dibdin  says,  "was 
that  of  imprecation."  Worse  (if  possible)  than  this, 
Blinton  had  gone  to  a  sale,  begun  to  bid  for  '  Les 
Essais  de  Michel,  Seigneur  de  Montaigne '  (Fop- 
pens,  MDCLIX.),  and,  carried  away  by  excitement, 
had  "plunged"  to  the  extent  of  ;!^I5,  which  was 
precisely  the  amount  of  money  he  owed  his  plumber 
and  gas-fitter,  a  worthy  man  with  a  large  family. 
Then,  meeting  a  friend  (if  the  book-hunter  has 
friends),  or  rather  an  accomplice  in  lawless  enter- 
prise, Blinton  had  remarked  the  glee  on  the  other's 
face.  The  poor  man  had  purchased  a  little  old 
Olaus  Magnus,  with  wood-cuts,  representing  were- 
wolves, fire-drakes,  and  other  fearful  wild-fowl,  and 
was  happy  in  his  bargain.  But  Blinton,  with  fiend- 
ish joy,  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  index  was  im- 
perfect, and  left  him  sorrowing. 

Deeds  more  foul  have  yet  to  be  told.     Thomas 


164  Boohs  and  Bookmen 

Blinton  had  discovered  a  new  sin,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  collecting  way.  Aristophanes  says  of  one  of 
his  favorite  blackguards,  "  Not  only  is  he  a  villain, 
but  he  has  invented  an  original  villainy."  Blinton 
was  like  this.  He  maintained  that  every  man  who 
came  to  notoriety  had,  at  some  period,  published  a 
volume  of  poems  which  he  had  afterwards  repented 
of  and  withdrawn.  It  was  Blinton's  hideous  pleas- 
ure to  collect  stray  copies  of  these  unhappy  vol- 
umes, these  '  Peches  de  Jeunesse,'  which,  always 
and  invariably,  bear  a  gushing  inscription  from  the 
author  to  a  friend.  He  had  all  Lord  John  Man- 
ners's  poems,  and  even  Mr.  Ruskin's.  He  had  the 
'Ode  to  Despair'  of  Smith  (now  a  comic  writer), 
and  the  '  Love  Lyrics '  of  Brown,  who  is  now  a  per- 
manent under-secretary,  than  which  nothing  can  be 
less  gay  nor  more  permanent.  He  had  the  revolu- 
tionary songs  which  a  dignitary  of  the  Church  pub- 
lished and  withdrew  from  circulation.  Blinton  was 
wont  to  say  he  expected  to  come  across  '  Triolets 
of  a  Tribune,'  by  Mr.  John  Bright,  and  '  Original 
Hymns  for  Infant  Minds,'  by  Mr.  Henry  Labou- 
chere,  if  he  only  hunted  long  enough. 

On  the  day  of  which  I  speak  he  had  secured  a 
volume  of  love-poems  which  the  author  had  done 
his  best  to  destroy,  and  he  had  gone  to  his  club  and 
read  all  the  funniest  passages  aloud  to  friends  of  the 
author,  who  was  on  the  club  committee.  Ah,  was 
this  a  kind  action  .-'  In  short,  Blinton  had  filled  up 
the  cup  of  his  iniquities,  and  nobody  will  be  sur- 
prised to  hear  that  he  met  the  appropriate  punish- 
ment of  his  offence.  Blinton  had  passed,  on  the 
whole,  a  happy  day,  notwithstanding  the  error  about 
the  Elzevir.     He  dined  well  at  his  club,  went  home. 


A  Bookman's  Purgatory  i65 

slept  well,  and  started  next  morning  for  his  office  in 
the  City,  walking,  as  usual,  and  intending  to  pursue 
the  pleasures  of  the  chase  at  all  the  book-stalls.  At 
the  very  first,  in  the  Brompton  Road,  he  saw  a  man 
turning  over  the  rubbish  in  the  cheap  box.  Blinton 
stared  at  him,  fancied  he  knew  him,  thought  he 
did  n't,  and  then  became  a  prey  to  the  glittering  eye 
of  the  other.  The  Stranger,  who  wore  the  conven- 
tional cloak  and  slouched  soft  hat  of  Strangers,  was 
apparently  an  accomplished  mesmerist,  or  thought- 
reader,  or  adept,  or  esoteric  Buddhist.  He  resem- 
bled Mr.  Isaacs,  Zanoni  (in  the  novel  of  that  name), 
Mendoza  (in  'Codlingsby '),  the  soul-less  man  in  'A 
Strange  Story,'  Mr.  Home,  Mr.  Irving  Bishop,  a 
Buddhist  adept  in  the  astral  body,  and  most  other 
mysterious  characters  of  history  and  fiction.  Before 
his  Awful  Will,  Blinton's  mere  modern  obstinacy 
shrank  back  like  a  child  abashed.  The  Stranger 
glided  to  him  and  whispered,  "  Buy  these." 

"  These  "  were  a  complete  set  of  Auerbach's  nov- 
els, in  English,  which,  I  need  not  say,  Blinton  would 
never  have  dreamt  of  purchasing  had  he  been  left 
to  his  own  devices. 

"  Buy  these  ! "  repeated  the  Adept,  or  whatever 
he  was,  in  a  cruel  whisper.  Paying  the  sum  de- 
manded, and  trailing  his  vast  load  of  German  ro- 
mance, poor  Blinton  followed  the  fiend. 

They  reached  a  stall  where,  amongst  much  trash, 
Glatigny's  *  Jour  de  I'An  d'un  Vagabond  '  was  ex- 
posed. 

"  Look,"  said  Blinton,  "  there  is  a  book  I  have 
wanted  some  time.  Glatignys  are  getting  rather 
scarce,  and  it  is  an  amusing  trifle." 

"  Nay,  buy  that^  said  the  implacable  Stranger, 


1 66  Books  and  Bookmen 

pointing  with  a  hooked  forefinger  at  Alison's  '  His- 
tory of  Europe '  in  an  indefinite  number  of  volumes. 
Blinton  shuddered. 

"  What,  buy  t/iat,  and  why  ?  In  heaven's  name, 
what  could  I  do  with  it  ? " 

"  Buy  it,"  repeated  the  persecutor,  "  and  tAa^  (in- 
dicating the  '  Ilios  '  of  Dr.  Schliemann,  —  a  bulky 
work),  and  tkese  (pointing  to  all  Mr.  Theodore  Alois 
Buckley's  translations  of  the  Classics),  and  t/iese " 
(glancing  at  the  collected  writings  of  the  late  Mr. 
Hain  Friswell,  and  at  a  '  Life,'  in  more  than  one  vol- 
ume, of  Mr.  Gladstone). 

The  miserable  Blinton  paid,  and  trudged  along, 
carrying  the  bargains  under  his  arm.  Now  one  book 
fell  out,  now  another  dropped  by  the  way.  Some- 
times a  portion  of  Alison  came  ponderously  to  earth  ; 
sometimes  the  '  Gentle  Life '  sunk  resignedly  to  the 
ground.  The  Adept  kept  picking  them  up  again, 
and  packing  them  under  the  arms  of  the  weary  Blin- 
ton. 

The  victim  now  attempted  to  put  on  an  air  of 
geniality,  and  tried  to  enter  into  conversation  with 
his  tormentor. 

"He  does  know  about  books,"  thought  Blinton, 
"and  he  must  have  a  weak  spot  somewhere." 

So  the  wretched  amateur  made  play  in  his  best 
conversational  style.  He  talked  of  bindings,  of 
Maioli,  of  Grolier,  of  De  Thou,  of  Derome,  of  Clovis 
Eve,  of  Roger  Payne,  of  Trautz,  and  eke  of  Bauzon- 
net.  He  discoursed  of  first  editions,  of  black  letter, 
and  even  of  illustrations  and  vignettes.  He  ap- 
proached the  topic  of  Bibles,  but  here  his  tyrant, 
with  a  fierce  yet  timid  glance,  interrupted  him. 

"  Buy  those  ! "  he  hissed  through  his  teeth. 


A  Bookman's  Purgatory  i6y 

"Those"  were  the  complete  publications  of  the 
Folk  Lore  Society. 

Blinton  did  not  care  for  folk  lore  (very  bad  men 
never  do),  but  he  had  to  act  as  he  was  told. 

Then,  without  pause  or  remorse,  he  was  charged 
to  acquire  the  *  Ethics  '  of  Aristotle,  in  the  agreeable 
versions  of  Williams  and  Chace.  Next  he  secured 
*  Strathmore,'  '  Chandos,'  '  Under  Two  Flags,'  and 
'Two  Little  Wooden  Shoes,'  and  several  dozens  more, 
of  Ouida's  novels.  The  next  stall  was  entirely  filled 
with  school-books,  old  geographies,  Livys,  Delec- 
tuses, Arnold's  '  Greek  Exercises,'  Ollendorffs,  and 
what  not. 

"  Buy  them  all,"  hissed  the  fiend.  He  seized  whole 
boxes  and  piled  them  on  Blinton's  head. 

He  tied  up  Ouida's  novels,  in  two  parcels,  with 
string,  and  fastened  each  to  one  of  the  buttons  above 
the  tails  of  Blinton's  coat. 

"  You  are  tired  } "  asked  the  tormentor.  "  Never 
mind,  these  books  will  soon  be  off  your  hands." 

So  speaking,  the  Stranger,  with  amazing  speed, 
hurried  Blinton  back  through  Holywell  Street,  along 
the  Strand,  and  up  to  Piccadilly,  stopping  at  last  at 
the  door  of  Blinton's  famous  and  very  expensive 
binder. 

The  binder  opened  his  eyes,  as  well  he  might,  at 
the  vision  of  Blinton's  treasures.  Then  the  miser- 
able Blinton  found  himself,  as  it  were  automatically 
and  without  any  exercise  of  his  will,  speaking  thus  :  — 

"  Here  are  some  things  I  have  picked  up,  —  ex- 
tremely rare,  —  and  you  will  oblige  me  by  binding 
them  in  your  best  manner,  regardless  of  expense. 
Morocco,  of  course  ;  crushed  levant  morocco,  doubU, 
every  book  of  them,  petits  fers,  my  crest  and  coat  of 


1 68  Books  and  Bookmen 

arms,  plenty  of  gilding.  Spare  no  cost.  Don't  keep 
me  waiting,  as  you  generally  do  ; "  for  indeed  book- 
binders are  the  most  dilatory  of  the  human  species. 

Before  the  astonished  binder  could  ask  the  most 
necessary  questions,  Blinton's  tormentor  had  hurried 
that  amateur  out  of  the  room. 

"Come  on  to  the  sale,"  he  cried. 

"  What  sale  ?  "  said  Blinton. 

"  Why,  the  Beckford  sale  ;  it  is  the  thirteenth 
day,  a  lucky  day." 

"  But  I  have  forgotten  my  catalogue." 

"  Where  is  it  ?  " 

"In  the  third  shelf  from  the  top,  on  the  right- 
hand  side  of  the  ebony  bookcase  at  home." 

The  Stranger  stretched  out  his  arm,  which  swiftly 
elongated  itself  till  the  hand  disappeared  from  view 
round  the  corner.  In  a  moment  the  hand  returned 
with  the  catalogue.  The  pair  sped  on  to  Messrs. 
Sotheby's  auction  -  rooms  in  Wellington  Street. 
Every  one  knows  the  appearance  of  a  great  book- 
sale.  The  long  table,  surrounded  by  eager  bidders, 
resembles  from  a  little  distance  a  roulette  table,  and 
communicates  the  same  sort  of  excitement.  The 
amateur  is  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  conduct  him- 
self. If  he  bids  in  his  own  person  some  bookseller 
will  outbid  him,  partly  because  the  bookseller  knows, 
after  all,  he  knows  little  about  books,  and  suspects 
that  the  amateur  may,  in  this  case,  know  more.  Be- 
sides, professionals  always  dislike  amateurs,  and,  in 
this  game,  they  have  a  very  great  advantage.  Blin- 
ton knew  all  this,  and  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  his 
commissions  to  a  broker.  But  now  he  felt  (and  very 
naturally)  as  if  a  demon  had  entered  into  him. 
*  Tirante  il  Bianco  Valorissimo  Cavaliere '  was  be- 


A  Bookman's  Purgatory  i6g 

ing  competed  for,  an  excessively  rare  romance  of 
chivalry,  in  magnificent  red  Venetian  morocco,  from 
Canevari's  library.  The  book  is  one  of  the  rarest  of 
the  Aldine  Press,  and  beautifully  adorned  with  Cane- 
vari's device,  —  a  simple  and  elegant  affair  in  gold 
and  colors.  "  Apollo  is  driving  his  chariot  across 
the  green  waves  towards  the  rock,  on  which  winged 
Pegasus  is  pawing  the  ground,"  though  why  this  ac- 
tion of  a  horse  should  be  called  "  pawing  "  (the  ani- 
mal notoriously  not  possessing  paws)  it  is  hard  to 
say.  Round  this  graceful  design  is  the  inscription 
OP0n5  KAI  MHjAOHmS  (straight  not  crooked).  In 
his  ordinary  mood  Blinton  could  only  have  admired 
'Tirante  il  Bianco  '  from  a  distance.  But  now,  the 
demon  inspiring  him,  he  rushed  into  the  lists,  and 

challenged   the   great    Mr.  ,  the    Napoleon   of 

bookselling.  'The  price  had  already  reached  five 
hundred  pounds. 

"Six  hundred,"  cried  Blinton, 

"  Guineas,"  said  the  great  Mr. . 

"  Seven  hundred,"  screamed  Blinton. 

"  Guineas,"  replied  the  other. 

This  arithmetical  dialogue  went  on  till  even  Mr. 

struck  his  flag,  with  a  sigh,  when  the  maddened 

Blinton  had  said  "  Four  thousand."  The  cheers  of 
the  audience  rewarded  the  largest  bid  ever  made  for 
any  book.  As  if  he  had  not  done  enough,  the 
Stranger  now  impelled  Blinton  to  contend  with  Mr. 

for  every  expensive  work  that  appeared.     The 

audience  naturally  fancied  that  Blinton  was  in  the 
earlier  stage  of  softening  of  the  brain,  when  a  man 
conceives  himself  to  have  inherited  boundless  wealth, 
\  and  is  determined  to  live  up  to  it.  The  hammer 
fell  for  the  last  time.     Blinton  owed  some  fifty  thou- 


lyo  Books  and  Bookmen 

sand  pounds,  and  exclaimed  audibly,  as  the  influence 
of  the  fiend  died  out,  "  I  am  a  ruined  man." 

**  Then  your  books  must  be  sold,"  cried  the 
Stranger,  and,  leaping  on  a  chair,  he  addressed  the 
audience  :  — 

"Gentlemen,  I  invite  you  to  Mr.  Blinton's  sale, 
which  will  immediately  take  place.  The  collection 
contains  some  very  remarkable  early  English  poets, 
many  first  editions  of  the  French  classics,  most  of 
the  rarer  Aldines,  and  a  singular  assortment  of 
Americana." 

In  a  moment,  as  if  by  magic,  the  shelves  round 
the  room  were  filled  with  Blinton's  books,  all  tied 
up  in  big  lots  of  some  thirty  volumes  each.  His 
early  Molieres  were  fastened  to  old  French  diction- 
aries and  school-books.  His  Shakespeare  quartos 
were  in  the  same  lot  with  tattered  railway  novels. 
His  copy  (happily  almost  unique)  of  Richard  Barn- 
field's  '  Affectionate  Shepheard  '  was  coupled  with 
two  odd  volumes  of  '  Chips  from  a  German  Work- 
shop '  and  a  cheap,  imperfect  example  of  '  Tom 
Brown's  School-days.'  Hookes's  'Amanda 'was  at 
the  bottom  of  a  lot  of  American  devotional  works, 
where  it  kept  company  with  an  Elzevir  Tacitus  and 
the  Aldine  '  Hypnerotomachia.'  The  auctioneer  put 
up  lot  after  lot,  and  Blinton  plainly  saw  that  the 
whole  affair  was  a  "  knock-out."  His  most  treasured 
spoils  were  parted  with  at  the  price  of  waste  paper. 
It  is  an  awful  thing  to  be  present  at  one's  own  sale. 
No  man  would  bid  above  a  few  shillings.  Well  did 
Blinton  know  that  after  the  knock-out  the  plunder 
would  be  shared  among  the  grinning  bidders.  At 
last  his  *  Adonais,'  uncut,  bound  by  Lortic,  went,  in 
company  with   some  old   '  Bradshaws,'  the  *  Court 


A  Bookman's  Purgatory  171 

Guide '  of  1881,  and  an  odd  volume  of  the  '  Sunday 
at  Home,'  for  sixpence.  The  Stranger  smiled  a  smile 
of  peculiar  malignity.  Blinton  leaped  up  to  protest ; 
the  room  seemed  to  shake  around  him,  but  words 
would  not  come  to  his  lips. 

Then  he  heard  a  familiar  voice  observe,  as  a  fa- 
miliar grasp  shook  his  shoulder,  — 

"  Tom,  Tom,  what  a  nightmare  you  are  enjoy- 
ing!" 

He  was  in  his  own  arm-chair,  where  he  had  fallen 
asleep  after  dinner,  and  Mrs.  Blinton  was  doing  her 
best  to  arouse  him  from  his  awful  vision.  Beside 
him  lay  *  L'Enfer  du  Bibliophile,  vu  et  decrit  par 
Charles  Asselineau.'    (Paris  :  Tardieu,  MDCCCLX.) 

If  this  were  an  ordinary  tract,  I  should  have  to 
tell  how  Blinton's  eyes  were  opened,  how  he  gave  up 
book-collecting,  and  took  to  gardening,  or  politics, 
or  something  of  that  sort.  But  truth  compels  me  to 
admit  that  Blinton's  repentance  had  vanished  by  the 
end  of  the  week,  when  he  was  discovered  marking 
M.  Claudin's  catalogue,  surreptitiously,  before  break- 
fast. Thus,  indeed,  end  all  our  remorses.  "  Lance- 
lot falls  to  his  own  love  again,"  as  in  the  romance. 
Much,  and  justly,  as  theologians  decry  a  death-bed 
repentance,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  only  repentance  that 
we  do  not  repent  of.  All  others  leave  us  ready,  when 
occasion  comes,  to  fall  to  our  old  love  again  ;  and 
may  that  love  never  be  worse  than  the  taste  for  old 
books  !  Once  a  collector,  always  a  collector.  Mot 
qui  parle,  I  have  sinned,  and  struggled,  and  fallen. 
I  have  thrown  catalogues,  unopened,  into  the  waste- 
paper  basket.  I  have  withheld  my  feet  from  the 
paths  that  lead  to  Sotheby's  and  Puttick's.     T  have 


1^2 


Boohs  and  Bookmen 


crossed  the  street  to  avoid  a  book-stall.  In  fact,  like 
the  prophet  Nicholas,  "  I  have  been  known  to  be 
steady  for  weeks  at  a  time."  And  then  the  fatal 
moment  of  temptation  has  arrived,  and  I  have  suc- 
cumbed to  the  soft  seductions  of  an  Aldine,  or  an 
Elzevir  or  an  old  book  on  Angling.  Probably  Grolier 
was  thinking  of  such  weaknesses  when  he  chose  his 
devices  Tanquam  Ventus,  and  quisque  siws  patimur 
Manes.  Like  the  wind  we  are  blown  about,  and, 
like  the  people  in  the  ^Eneid,  we  are  obliged  to  suffer 
the  consequences  of  our  own  extravagance. 


S^allatie  of  t^t  Bmttaimbit 

The  Books  I  cannot  hope  to  buy, 

Tbeir  phantoms  round  me  walti  and  v;beel, 

Tbej>  pass  before  the  dreaming  eye, 

Ere  Sleep  the  dreaming  eye  can  seal. 

A  kind  of  literary  reel 

They  dance;  but  fair  the  bindings  shine. 

Prose  cannot  tell  them  what  I  feel,  — 

The  Books  that  never  can  be  mine! 


There  frisk  Editions  rare  and  shy, 
Morocco  clad  from  head  to  heel ; 
Shakspearian  quartos;  Comedy 
As  first  she  flashed  from  Richard  Steele  ^ 
And  quaint  De  Foe  on  Mrs.  Veal ; 
And,  lord  of  landing  net  and  line. 
Old  f^aak  with  his  fishing  creel,  — 
The  Books  that  never  can  be  mine ! 


Incunables  !  for  you  I  sigh. 
Black  letter ,  at  thy  founts  I  kneel, 
Old  tales  of  Perrault's  nursery, 
For  you  I'd  go  without  a  meal! 


174  Books  and  Bookmen 

For  Books  wherein  did  /tldus  deal 
j4nd  rare  Galiot  du  Pr^  I  pine. 
The  watches  of  the  night  reveal 
The  Books  that  never  can  he  mine! 

ENVOY. 

Prince,  hear  a  hopeless  Bard's  appeal ; 
Reverse  the  rules  of  Mine  and  Thine  ; 
Make  it  legitimate  to  steal 
The  Books  that  never  can  be  mine! 


%nux 


^SCHYLUS,  21,  24 

Aldus,  72,  yj 

Angoul^e,  Marguerite  d',  74 

Annius,  24,  25 

Archilochus,  25 

Aristotle,  32,  76 

Arnold,  Matthew,  65,  98 

Asselineau,  Charles,  171 

Athanasius,  26 

Aumale,  Due  d',  85 

Bacon,  21 

Barberini,  Cardinal,  80 

Bauchart,  Quentin,  124 

Bayle,  25 

B^jart,  Madeleine,  128 

Bennet,  M.,  2 

Besant,  W.,  26 

Blimber,  Mrs.,  26 

Bookman's  Purgatory,  A,  161 

Borel,  Petrus,  86 

Borgia,  Alexander,  25 

Bossuet,  83,  87,  88 

Boswell,  James,  28 

Bozerian,  97 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  134 

Browning,  Robert,  36,  6 

Brunet,  87,  123 

Bryant,  Jacob,  28 

Byron,  Lord,  62 

Campanella,  73 
Cato,  25 


Catullus,  27 

Chambord,  Comte  de,  72 

Charlemagne,  75,  97 

Chateaubriand,  61-63,  66 

Chatterton,  15,  27,  28,  29 

Cicero,  24,  26,  27 

Clough,  32,  60,  65,  67 

Colbert,  74,  82,  S^ 

Collier,  J.  Payne,  17,  33,  34,  35 

Comte,  Auguste,  151 

Condorcet,  84 

Cotin,  Abb6,  74 

Cotton,  R.  W.,  103,  104,  105 

D'Assier,  M.,  102 

Derome,  74,  98 

Desmarets  de  St.  Porlin,  99 

Des  Portes,  86 

Dibdin,  161-163 

Didot,  A.  F.,  72,  74,  77 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  112 

Dolet,  73,  106 

Double,  Leopold,  76 

Du  Barry,  Madame,  74,  loi 

Du    Bellay,  Joachim,  60,  61,  65-67, 

86 
Dubois,  Cardinal,  83 
Dumas,  Alex.,  76 
Du  Moustier,  80 
Dusseuil,  98,  99,  106 
Dutuit,  M.,  124 

Edwards,  Amelia  B.,  148 


176 


Index 


Elzevir,  Abraham,  114,  117 

Elzevir,  Bonaventure,  114,  117 

Elzevir,  Isaac,  1 14 

Elzevir,  John  and  Daniel,  114,  117 

Elzevir,  Louis,  72,  114 

Elzevir,  Matthew,  114 

Erasmus,  22 

Este,  Princess  d',  75 

Estienne,  Robert,  72 

Eve,  Clevis,  74,  107 

Fertiault,  77 

Fletcher,  John,  41 

Fletcher,  Laurence,  41 

Fontaine  de  Resbeck,  91,  124,  127 

Francis  1.,  74,  Tj,  107 

Froude,  Anthony,  42 

Galliot  du  Pr6,  106 
Gambetta,  L6on,  86 
Ganneau,  Clermont,  16 
Garlande,  Jean  de,  26 
Gautier,  Theophile,  86 
Gibbon,  60 

Giles,  Herbert,  137,  138 
Glatigny,  Albert,  91 
Goethe,  64-66 
Gray,  28 

Gregory  II.  (Pope),  22 
Grolier,  74,  82,  97-99,  107,  172 
Guyon,  Madame  de,  76 

Hardouin,  24 

Hardy-Mennil,  97 

Hare,  Augustus,  157 

Hawthorne,  N.,  67 

Heine,  H.,  61 

Henry  II.  (of  France),  75 

Henry  III.  (of  France),  74,  76,  77 

Henry  VIII.  (of  England),  42,  43 

Herodotus,  19,  20,  22,  24 

Hokusai,  133,  135 

Homer,  19,  22,  24 

Houssar^,  Amelot  de  la,  80 

Howell,  James,  103-105 

Hoym,  Comte  d',  83,  84 

Ingleby,  Dr.,  32 


Inglesant,  John,  98 
Innocent  X.  (Pope),  80 
Ireland,  Samuel,  28,  31,  32 
Ireland,  VV.  H.,  15,  16,  20,  27-32 

Janin,  Jules,  72 

Japanese  Bogie-Books,  133 

La  Bruyfere,  82 

Lacroix,  Paul,  79,  86 

Le  Fanu,  S.,  157 

Le  Gascon,  98, 107 

Livy,  24,  25 

Longepierre,  83,  84 

Lortic,  170 

Louis  XIV.,  74,  79,  82 

Louis  XV.,  74,  84 

Lucretius,  21  » 

Luynes,  Charles  de,  100 

Macpherson,  17,  27,  28 
Mainsforth,  15 
Manetho,  25 
Marchena,  27 
Marcus  Aurelius,  63 
Marie  Antoinette,  74,  loi 
Marius-Michel,  96,  97 
Mazarin,  Cardinal,  78,  79,  82 
M6rim6e,  Prosper,  17 
Meursius,  26 
Milman,  22 

MoHfere,  73,  80-83,  87,  91,  128 
Montaigne,  60,  63,  64 

Naud6,  Gabriel,  78,  79 

Nodier,  Charles,  72,  74,  86,  87,  129 

Nodot,  Frangois,  27 

Nymauld,  101, 102 

Olaus,  Magnus,  102 
Oldfield,  Mrs.,  45 
Onomacritus,  18-20 
Oxenham  family  (the),  102-105 

Padeloup,  74,  98 
Pascal,  114 
Payn,  James,  28 
Payne,  Roger,  84 


Index 


177 


Petrarch,  27 

Petronius,  102 

Pieters,  72,  123 

Pindar,  41 

Pisistratus,  18-20 

Pixerecourt,  G.  de,  75,  86,  118 

Plato,  20-22 

Pliny,  24,  102 

Plutarch,  20 

Pee,  Edgar,  134 

Poggio,  24,  79 

Poictiers,  Diane  de,  74,  75 

Pompadour,  Madame  de,  88,  loi 

Rabelais,  26,  "jt,,  88,    106 
Richelieu,  Cardinal,  78 
Roberts,  F.  J.,  41 
Rohan,  Anne  de,  100 
Ronsard,  86,  loi,  107 
Rousseau,  J.  B.,  ^■^ 
Ruskin,  36,  62 

Sala,  G.  A.,  74 
Sappho,  24 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  35 
Seneca,  78 
Shapira,  Mr.,  16,  30 
Shakespeare,  21,  30,  31,  35 
Shelley,  36,  73,  118 
Smith,  Captain  John,  107 
Smith,  Jo,  15 


Socrates,  22,  26 
Solon,  18 
Sophocles,  21,  24 
Soulie,  M.,  81 
Spencer,  Herbert,  133 
Spenser,  Edmund,  60,  61,  66 
Steevens,  G.,  i6i 
Surtees,  15,  17,  35 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  78 

Tacitus,  24 

Tallemant  des  R^aux,  80 

Temple,  Sir  William,  21,  22 

Theocritus,  -j^ 

Thou,  de,  74,  82,  98 

Trautz-Bauzonnet,  98,  107,  124,  129 

Vallifere,  (Due)  de  la,  74,  84 
Valois,  Marguerite  de,  107 
Van  Dyck,  Christopher,  117 
Villon,  Frangois,  y^,  88 
Virgil,  24 
Vishnu,  23 

Walpole,  Horace,  28 
Waters,  Chester,  40,  41,  49 
Wetstein,  118 
Willems,  M.,  128,  129 
Wolfgang,  Abraham,  113 

Ximenes,  Cardinal,  42 


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